The employment rate of the 34 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries remained stable at 66.1 percent in the second quarter of 2015. The employment rate in the second quarter this year was only 0.4 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.
In the second quarter, the employment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point in the euro area to 64.3 percent, and also indicated increases of 0.1 percentage point in the United States, Canada and Japan to 68.7 percent, 72.6 percent and 73.2 percent respectively, while in the UK the rate declined by 0.1 percentage point to 72.5 percent, all quarter on quarter. In the given quarter, the employment rate rose in Estonia by 1.5 percentage points to 71.7 percent, while the rate in Greece increased by 0.9 percentage points to 50.7 percent, both compared to the previous quarter. According to the OECD’s statement, in the second quarter the employment rate was 63.7 percent in Hungary, 67.4 percent in Luxembourg, 64.0 percent in Portugal and 65.2 percent in Slovenia, all higher by 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, compared to the first quarter of the current year, the OECD employment rate for women increased by 0.2 percentage points to 58.4 percent, while it was stable for men at 74.0 percent. In several OECD countries such as Japan, the United States or Greece, women accounted for most of the changes in the employment rate.