OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.9% in April 2017 | WPN World People News

The OECD unemployment rate was stable at 5.9% in April 2017. Across the OECD area, 36.9 million people were unemployed, 4.2 million more than before the crisis in April 2008.

In the euro area, the unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point, to 9.3% in April, with the largest falls observed in Italy (down 0.4 percentage point, to 11.1%) and Spain (down 0.3 percentage point, to 17.8%).

The April unemployment rate also decreased in Canada (by 0.2 percentage point, to 6.5%) and the United States (by 0.1 percentage point, to 4.4%), while it was stable in Japan (at 2.8%) and increased in Mexico (by 0.1 percentage point, to 3.6%) and Korea (by 0.3 percentage point, to 4.0%). More recent data show that in May the unemployment rate declined further in the United States (by 0.1 percentage point, to 4.3%) while it increased in Canada (by 0.1 percentage point, to 6.6%).

Youth unemployment affecting people aged 15 to 24, rose slightly, by 0.1 percentage point, to 12.1% in April. In the euro area, the youth unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage point, to 18.7%, contributing to a cumulative decline of almost two percentage points over the previous five months. However, almost one youth in two remains unemployed in Greece (46.6% in March, the latest month available), and more than one in three in Spain (39.3%) and Italy (34.0%).

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development