Employment situation, third 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 0.1 percentage point to 65.7% in the third quarter of 2014. The OECD employment rate is 0.5 percentage point higher than one year before, but still 0.8 percentage point below its level in the second quarter of 2008.

In the third quarter of 2014, the employment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point in the Euro area (to 64.0%), the fourth consecutive increase, with the largest rises in Portugal (up 0.6 percentage point to 63.0%), Greece (up 0.5 percentage point to 49.7%), Ireland (up 0.5 percentage point to 61.9%), the Slovak Republic (up 0.3 percentage point to 61.0%), Germany (up 0.3 percentage point to 74.0%) and the Netherlands (up 0.3 percentage point to 73.9%).

The employment rate also rose in Japan (up 0.2 percentage point to 72.8%, the tenth consecutive increase), the United Kingdom (up 0.1 percentage point to 72.0%, the sixth consecutive increase), the United States (up 0.1 percentage point to 68.2%, the highest level since the first quarter of 2009), and Canada (up 0.1 percentage point to 72.3%, after two quarters of decrease).

Compared with the second quarter of 2014, the OECD youth employment rate (among 15-24 year-olds) was stable in the third quarter of 2014, (at 39.7%, after 3 quarters of increase), while the OECD employment rate increased for workers aged 25-54 (by 0.1 percentage point to 76.0%) and for workers aged 55-64 (by 0.2 percentage point to 57.5%). The OECD employment rate for men increased more rapidly (up 0.2 percentage point to 73.7%) than for women (up 0.1 percentage point to 57.9%).

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development