OECD employment rate at 64.9 percent in Q1

The employment rate of the 34 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries was 64.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012, 1.6 percentage points lower than the 66.5 percent recorded in the second quarter of 2008, the quarter preceding the start of the global financial crisis.
 
There have been large disparities in the evolution of employment rates across OECD countries since the start of the crisis. Since the second quarter of 2008, the employment rate has declined by around two percentage points in Estonia, the euro area, New Zealand, Norway and Slovenia, by more than four percentage points in Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, and the United States, and by around eight percentage points or more in Greece, Ireland, and Spain. Only in Chile, Germany and Turkey are employment rates significantly higher today than at the onset of the crisis.
 
Meanwhile, the latest Employment Outlook 2012 report denoted that current weak economic recovery will keep unemployment rates in OECD countries high until at least the end of 2013. The organization forecasts that the OECD-wide joblessness rate will remain high at 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, close to the 7.9 percent rate in May 2012. This leaves around 48 million people out of work across the OECD. In the euro area, unemployment rose further in May to an all-time peak of 11.1 percent. To get employment rates back to pre-crisis levels, about 14 million jobs need to be created in the OECD area.