Unemployment rate has fallen to 7.4% in OECD countries

The unemployment rate in OECD countries fell significantly in August to 7.4 % from 8 % in July, driven by the downward trend in the United States even though it continued to rise in European Union countries, the organisation reported on Monday.

In addition, in the euro area, workers who remain in temporary employment arrangements (TEPs) do not appear in the statistics as unemployed.

On the other hand, in the United States and Canada, the unemployment rate has continued to fall as workers in TEREs have returned to work. In August, unemployment fell by 1.8 percentage points in the US and 0.7 points in Canada.

In contrast, euro area countries continued on the upward path of the unemployment rate in July (8.0%) and August (8.1%). The rise was particularly pronounced in France (7.5%), Lithuania (9.6%) and Spain (16.2%). The highest unemployment in the euro area is in Greece (18.3%), although this is a quarterly figure published in June.

The EU as a whole also saw an increase of one tenth, from 7.3% in July to 7.4% in August.

Spain remains the OECD country with the highest youth unemployment, with 43.9% of unemployed people under 25 (2.2 points higher than in July), followed by Italy (32.1%), Colombia (28.2%), Portugal (26.3%) and Lithuania (25.4%).

By gender, it is in Colombia where the difference between women (22.3%) and men is largest (14.1%) followed by Spain, where unemployment among women in August was 17.2%, by 15% among men.

In Japan, unemployment rose by only a tenth, from 2.9% in July to 3% in August.

In Mexico the percentage of unemployed compared to the labour force fell by 0.2% compared to July (from 5.2% to 5%).

Colombia recorded the largest fall among OECD countries, by 2.2 percentage points, from 19.7% to 17.5%, while in South Korea it fell by 1 point to 3.2% and in Australia by 0.7 points to 6.8%.