In the wake of the 2016 election, Opportunity America convened a bipartisan study group, cosponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, to consider the challenges facing working-class communities and craft a set of policy solutions. In November 2018, the group released its final report, Work, skills, community: Restoring opportunity for the working class – a slate of bipartisan proposals to create jobs, train and retrain workers and revitalize blue-collar communities.

TWC, in collaboration with the national Workforce Information Council, conducted a survey of employers in 2015. Employers were asked to estimate cost and availability of data, and results were broken down by firm size. The survey showed significant concern among employers about mandating submission of additional occupational data via unemployment insurance tax returns. Those concerns covered numerous topics. However, implementation costs and compliance-burden issues were most often mentioned. TWC estimates that the initial cost to employers could range from $478 million to $1.2 billion, with annual recurring costs of $342 million to $715 million.

Digitalisation, globalisation, demographic shifts and other changes in work organisation are constantly reshaping skill needs. This can lead to persistent skill shortages and mismatch which are costly for individuals, firms and society in terms of lost wages and lower productivity and growth. These costs can be reduced through better assessment and anticipation of changing skill needs and by improving the responsiveness of skills development to these changes. This report identifies effective strategies for improving labour market information on skill needs and ensuring that this information is used effectively to develop the right skills. It provides a comparative assessment of practices across 29 countries in the following areas: i) the collection of information on existing and future skill needs; ii) the use of this information to guide skill development policies in the areas of labour, education and migration; and iii) governance arrangements to ensure good coordination among the key stakeholders in the collection and use of skill needs information.

Education at a Glance is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It provides key information on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; the financial and human resources invested in education; access, participation and progression in education; and the learning environment and organisation of schools. The 2016 edition introduces a new indicator on the completion rate of tertiary students and another one on school leaders. It provides more trend data and analysis on diverse topics, such as: teachers’ salaries; graduation rates; expenditure on education; enrolment rates; young adults who are neither employed nor in education or training; class size; and teaching hours. The publication examines gender imbalance in education and the profile of students who attend, and graduate from, vocational education.

Persistently high debt ratios in advanced economies and emerging fragilities in the developing world cast clouds on the global fiscal landscape. In advanced economies, with narrowing budget deficits, the average public debt ratio is expected to stabilize in 2013–14—but it will be at a historic peak. At the same time, fiscal vulnerabilities are on the rise in emerging market economies and low-income countries—on the back, in emerging market economies, of heightened financial volatility and downward revisions to potential growth, and in low-income countries, of possible shortfalls in commodity prices and aid. Strengthening fiscal balances and buttressing confidence thus remain at the top of the policy agenda. Against that backdrop, this issue explores whether and how tax reform can help strengthen public finances. Taxation is always a sensitive topic and is now more than ever at the center of policy debates around the world. Can countries tax more, better, more fairly? Results reported in this issue show that the scope to raise more revenue is limited in many advanced economies and, where tax ratios are already high, the bulk of the necessary adjustment will have to fall on spending. In emerging market economies and low-income countries, where the potential for raising revenue is often substantial, improving compliance remains a central challenge.