Employment situation, third quarter 2013, OECD | WPN World People News

The OECD area employment rate in the third quarter of 2013 – defined as the share of people of working-age who are in employment – increased for the second consecutive quarter (by 0.1 percentage point to 65.2%).

Employment rates
Employment as a percentage of
the working-age population

Change in OECD employment rates
Percentage points

In the euro area, the employment rate rose for the first time since the second quarter of 2011 (up 0.1 percentage point to 63.5%) but remained 0.3 percentage point lower than one year ago. Compared with the previous quarter, the employment rate also increased in Japan (up 0.3 percentage point to 71.8%), the United Kingdom (up 0.2 percentage point to 70.8%) and the United States (up 0.1 percentage point to 67.4%) but it decreased in Canada (by 0.2 percentage point to 72.4%).

Among other OECD countries, the largest rises were observed in Portugal (up 0.7 percentage point to 61.3%), Slovenia (up 0.7 percentage point to 63.7%), Ireland (up 0.6 percentage point to 60.7%), Israel (up 0.6 percentage point to 67.3%) and New Zealand (up 0.5 percentage point to 73.2%). The largest falls were observed in Estonia (down 1.1 percentage points to 67.9%), Turkey (down 0.5 percentage point to 49.2%), the Netherlands (down 0.4 percentage point to 74.0%) and Denmark (down 0.4 percentage point to 72.4%).

The employment rate for older workers (aged 55-64) in the OECD area continued to increase, rising by 0.3 percentage point (to 56.5%) in the third quarter of 2013 and is now 0.9 percentage point higher than one year ago and 2.4 percentage points higher than in the second quarter of 2008. Over the last year, the older workers employment rate rose by 2.0 percentage points in the United Kingdom (to 60.2%), 1.6 percentage points in Japan (to 67.1%), 1.4 percentage points in the euro area (to 50.3%), and by 0.3 percentage point in the United States (to 60.9%). Over the same period it decreased in Australia, Greece, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and Turkey. TheOECD areaemployment rates for other age groups were at the same levels as one year ago.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development