The Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said Wednesday that unemployment across the OECD hasn’t moved much in over a year.
The unemployment rate for the OECD area was 8.2% in February, and it has remained broadly at this level since January 2011, the group noted. Approximately 45.0 million people were unemployed across the OECD area in February, up 0.4 million from February 2011, which represents the first monthly year-on-year increase since May 2010. And the total number of unemployed is 14.3 million higher than in February 2008.
New data for March show the unemployment rate falling in both the U.S. and Canada, the OECD reports. However, the jobless rate continues to rise in the Euro area. The rate rose by 0.1 percentage point in February (for the eighth consecutive month) to 10.8%, maintaining a record high since the start of the global financial crisis.
Within the euro area, unemployment rates rose most in Spain, by 0.3 percentage points to 23.6%. And, by 0.2 percentage points in Italy (to 9.3%) and Portugal (to 15.0%); and, they also inched up in Austria and Luxembourg. The rates declined in Finland and the Netherlands, while remaining stable in all other euro area countries.