Harmonised Unemployment Rates (HURs) | WPN World People News

The OECD unemployment rate was stable in July 2015, at 6.8%. Since the peak reached in January 2013, the cumulative decline in the OECD unemployment rate is 1.3 percentage point.

OECD Harmonised Unemployment Rates, s.a.

In the euro area, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 10.9% in July. The largest falls in this area were observed in Italy (down 0.5 percentage point, to 12.0%), Portugal (down 0.2 percentage point, to 12.1%, the 6th consecutive month of decline) and Spain (down 0.2 percentage point, to 22.2%, having decreased every month for almost 2 years).

The unemployment rate in July was stable in Canada (at 6.8%), Mexico (at 4.4%) and the United States (at 5.3%), while it decreased by 0.2 percentage point in Korea (to 3.7%) and by 0.1 percentage point in Japan (to 3.3%). More recent data referring to August 2015 show that the unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points in the United States (to 5.1%), while it increased in Canada (by 0.2 percentage point, to 7.0%).

Across the OECD area, 41.6 million people were unemployed in July, 7.3 million less than in January 2013, but still 7.1 million more than in July 2008, immediately before the crisis. There were 17.5 million unemployed in the euro area, 8.3 million in the United States, 3 million in Turkey (in May, the latest month available), 2.3 million in Mexico and 2.2 million in Japan. In July, the highest monthly decreases in the number of unemployed were observed in Italy (down 143 thousand), Spain (down 57 thousand) and Korea (down 43 thousand).

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development