OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.5% in January 2018 | WPN World People News

The OECD unemployment rate was stable at 5.5% in January 2018. Across the OECD area, 34.5 million people were unemployed, 1.9 million more than in April 2008.

In the euro area, the unemployment rate was stable at 8.6% in January. The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage point or more in Slovenia (down 0.3 percentage point, to 5.9%) and the Netherlands (down 0.2 percentage point, to 4.2%). By contrast, it increased by 0.2 percentage point in Italy (to 11.1%, returning to its November 2017 level).

Outside the euro area, the unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage point in Israel (to 3.7%) and Japan (to 2.4%), and by 0.1 percentage point in Korea (to 3.6%) and Mexico (to 3.3%). It was stable in the United States (at 4.1%) and rose by 0.1 percentage point in Canada (to 5.9%). More recent data show that in February, the unemployment rate remained stable in the United States, while it decreased by 0.1 percentage point in Canada (to 5.8%).

In January, the OECD unemployment rate for women (down 0.1 percentage point, to 5.6%) remained slightly above that for men (unchanged at 5.4%). Over the past four years, the difference between unemployment rate for women and men has hovered between 0.1 and 0.4 percentage point. Gender differences in unemployment rates are significantly higher in the euro area, where the unemployment rate for women in January was 0.7 percentage point higher than that for men. Conversely, the unemployment rate for men exceeded that for women by 0.3 percentage point in both Japan and the United States.

The OECD unemployment rate for youth (people aged 15 to 24) fell by 0.2 percentage point in January (to 11.4%), the second consecutive monthly decline, but remains more than twice as large as that for other age categories.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development