Employment situation, first quarter 2014, OECD | WPN World People News

The OECD area employment rate – defined as the share of people of working-age who are in employment – increased by 0.2 percentage point (to 65.6%) in the first quarter of 2014, the fourth consecutive quarterly increase. 536.2 million persons were employed in the first quarter of 2014, 1.7 million more than in the previous quarter. However, the OECD employment rate is still 1.0 percentage point below its level in the second quarter of 2008.

Left: Employment rates
Employment as a percentage of
the working-age population
Right：Change in OECD employment rates
Percentage points

In the Euro area, the employment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point to 63.8%, after having been stable in the previous quarter. The employment rate also rose in Japan (up 0.2 percentage point to 72.4%, the eighth consecutive quarter of increase), in the United Kingdom (up 0.4 percentage point to 71.6%), and in the United States (up 0.4 percentage point to 67.8%), whereas it decreased slightly in Canada (down 0.1 percentage point to 72.3%).

Compared with the first quarter of 2013, the employment rate increased in about two thirds of OECD countries. The largest gains were observed in Hungary (up 4.3 percentage points to 61.7%) and New Zealand (up 1.9 percentage points to 74.5%) while the largest falls were recorded in the Netherlands (down 1.0 percentage point to 73.7%), Australia (down 0.7 percentage point to 71.6%) and Denmark (down 0.7 percentage point to 72.0%).

In the first quarter of 2014, the OECD employment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point for all age groups, and by 0.3 and 0.2 percentage point for men and women, to 73.5% and 57.8%, respectively. Compared with one year ago, the increase in the employment rate was stronger for workers aged 55-64 (up 0.9 percentage point to 56.9%), than for youth (up 0.5 percentage point to 39.6%) and workers aged 25-54 (up 0.4 percentage point to 75.9%).

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development