The findings of the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Employment Outlook report open this edition, with a focus on examining the impact on employment of the Covid-19 crisis and Russia's aggression against Ukraine, together with an assessment of future labour market challenges.
As outlined in the OECD report, labour shortages are one of the main challenges currently faced by global labour markets. According to the new Strategic Issue Paper from the World Employment Confederation (WEC)-Europe and highlighted in this newsletter, one critical way to address this issue is to foster labour market reforms based on skills development and training and greater cooperation between employers, governments and workers.
We also report on a recent resolution passed by the European Parliament, Mental Health in the Digital World of Work. In addition, in Scotland, we spotlight a governmental free platform for employers to promote mental health in the workplace and implement a culture of well-being in the workplace.
We go on to analyse in this edition recent amendments to employment legislation on working from home in Norway, and employment reforms in Malaysia and Puerto Rico that are causing significant debate, both at the political level and among employers' organisations, due to their considerable impact on the management of labour relations and on employers' costs.
Some highlights of our country-level coverage include Chile becoming the 21st country to ratify ILO Convention No. 190 against Violence and Harassment in the Workplace; China’s strict ban on all kinds of labour discrimination related to Covid-19; the Luxembourg government’s announcement that it will help employers, in the event of a reduction in activity linked to the energy crisis with employment support measures; and in Singapore, the penalties for failing to comply with the obligation to protect employees' health are further tightened.
This edition also looks at the protection of sensitive employee health data. We report on the Belgian Data Protection Authority’s recently statement that sharing and recording such data in meeting minutes without the data subject's consent violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), even if the meeting was related to the termination of the employee.
Finally, we report on an interesting development by the La Poste Group, which has decided to tackle the shortage of skilled labour by setting up a data and artificial intelligence school.