Economic growth may be slowing, but employment levels are holding up according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The OECD said Tuesday that the unemployment rate for the OECD economies was unchanged at 8.2% in September. The rate has remained at around 8.2% since January, it says.
“Between August and September unemployment rates in most OECD countries continued to display very little movement, with the notable exception of Spain where the unemployment rate was up by 0.4 percentage point to 22.6% and Italy where it was up by 0.3 percentage point to 8.3%,” it says. The Euro area unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in September, the highest rate recorded since June 2010, adds the OECD.
However, it also notes that new unemployment rate data for October show a small decline in the rate U.S., down by 0.1 percentage points to 9.0%; and an increase in Canada, up by 0.2 percentage points to 7.3%.
It estimates that around 44.8 million people were unemployed across the OECD area in September, down 1.6 million from September 2010 but still 10.8 million higher than in September 2008.