OECD: employment rose slightly in early 2021

Posted by Elena del Valle on July 27, 2021

Latest OECD employment and unemployment numbers – click to enlarge

Graphic: OECD

According to an embargoed press release from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the OECD area employment rate rose to 66.8 percent in the first quarter of 2021 from 66.7 percent in the previous quarter; wide disparities across countries are visible. The organization defined OECD area employment rate as the share of the working-age population with jobs.

In the first quarter of this year in the United States employment was 68.4 percent compared to 66.9 percent in the euro area, and 77.6 percent in Japan. It is notable that the Netherlands had a 79.3 percent employment rate, the highest in the region, and Greece 59.9 percent, the region’s minimum.

The press release clarified the following: Methodological changes to the European Union (E.U.) Labour Force Survey blur the comparison between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 for EU countries. In addition, a large part of the increase in the third and, to a lesser extent, fourth quarter of 2020 reflects the return to work of furloughed workers in Canada and the United States, where they are recorded as unemployed, whereas in most other countries, they are recorded as employed.

Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is “a global policy forum that promotes policies to preserve individual liberty and improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.”