Employment diagnostics has been a central focus of our work during the crisis, but the subject is not new to us. In 2012, the ILO issued its Employment Diagnostics Assessment (EDA) guidelines to assist in understanding the nature of deficiencies in productive employment, and the related context-specific constraints, challenges and opportunities, as a basis for more effectively focusing policies and strategies designed to achieve productive employment. The EDA has been used to assess countries' economic and demographic situations, as well as their policy and regulatory environments, during the past decade. In the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, the ILO issued guidance on Rapid Diagnostics for Assessing the Country Level Impact of COVID-19, which led to the implementation of at least 30 country studies and several other regional and global studies. A new series of diagnostics to monitor the recovery from the crisis is now under way. The focus of an employment diagnosis is to identify the immediate impact of a crisis and provide recommendations for appropriate policy responses. As such, it constitutes a key input for the formulation and revision of the new generation of gender-responsive national employment policies.