Policy priorities for achieving better labour market outcomes in Portugal

This final chapter offers some thoughts on the road that lies ahead. The labour market reforms carried out over the past few years in Portugal were comprehensive and, as argued in this report, it will take time for their full effects to become both visible and entirely understood. In this sense, the present report should be seen only as a preliminary assessment of those reforms. That being said, it is possible, even at this stage, to make some observations about key policy priorities for the future. While most of these will require further reforms of labour market institutions, policies and practices, achieving higher levels of employment and greater inclusiveness in Portugal will also depend on factors that lie outside the realm of labour market policy. These include first and foremost the need to return to higher and more sustainable levels of growth, but also, amongst others: further investments in skills, product market and tax reforms, and improving the access that firms have to credit.