Riding the waves: adjusting job retention schemes through the COVID-19 crisis

This document provides an update on the use of job retention (JR) schemes during the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis until the end of 2021 and takes stock of the different strategies employed by OECD governments to adjust them as the crisis evolved. It provides three key insights. First, since reaching a peak of 20 per cent of employment in April/May 2020 on average across OECD countries, the use of JR support has declined to 1.3 per cent in November/December 2021. Second, countries have used different approaches to adjust temporary JR provisions during the course of the crisis, with some phasing them out, some providing increasingly targeted support and others keeping temporary measures unchanged. Third, JR schemes have tended to become more targeted by directing support towards jobs in firms that had been affected most by the pandemic, but remained viable in the medium term. A majority of countries now require co‑financing by firms for hours not worked under these schemes in contrast to the start of the crisis when most countries exempted firms from subsidising the costs associated with hours not worked.

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