The unemployment rate in the OECD area edged down for the seventh straight month in November, declining to 5.5% from 5.7% in October, the Paris-based group reported.

The number of unemployed workers also continued to fall, the OECD noted.

However, labour markets haven’t fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 36.9 million workers unemployed, which was 1.5 million above the pre-pandemic level.

The jobless rates was also still 0.2 percentage points above the pre-pandemic rate, the OECD said.

Among the G7, drops in unemployment in November were particularly strong in Canada (falling to 6.0% from 6.7%) and the U.S. (to 4.2% from 4.6%), the OECD reported.

“More recent data show that in December the unemployment rate declined further in Canada (to 5.9%) and the United States (to 3.9%),” it said.

Unemployment also dropped notably in Australia, Colombia, Czech Republic and Israel.