Unemployment rates were stable in September, according to the latest data from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The group reports that jobless rates across the OECD area were stable at 7.9% in September, with 47.9 million counted as unemployed. The jobless total is down slightly from the previous month, but they are still many more unemployed (13.2 million) than before the onset of the financial crisis.
For Canada, the jobless rate fell for the second straight month, it says, by 0.2 percentage points to 6.9%. It also dropped in the United States for the third consecutive month, and it slipped in Japan, Australia and Korea. However, more recent data for October, showed that the unemployment rate edged up in the U.S. and reminded stable in Canada.
In the euro area, the unemployment rate was stable at 12.2% in September. However, the OECD says that the headline stability conceals diverging patterns across countries. It notes that jobless rates increased to new highs in France and Italy, but decreased in Germany to 5.2%, which is that country’s lowest level since 1991.
The youth unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point for the OECD overall, it says, to 16.0%; but it increased by 0.1 points in the euro area to 24.1%.