Labour markets are working, but also changing

THE JOBS numbers a year ago were grim. Unemployment across the rich world rose from 5% to 9% in April 2020. In America unemployment rose from 4% to nearly 15% in a month, such a rapid increase that some social-security computers broke. In its June 2020 forecasts, the OECD foresaw worse to come. If there were a second wave of covid-19 at the end of the year, it said, unemployment would reach 12.6% before inching downwards, but not falling below 10% until the second half of 2021.