The standardised unemployment rate for the OECD area was 5.5% in April 2008, the same as the previous month and 0.1 percentage point lower than a year earlier.

In the Euro area, the standardised unemployment rate was 7.1% in April 2008, the same as the previous month and 0.4 percentage point lower than a year earlier. For the United States the standardised unemployment rate for May 2008 was 5.5%, 0.5 percentage point higher than the previous month and 1.0 percentage point higher than a year earlier. For Japan, the rate was 4.0% in April 2008, 0.2 percentage point higher than the previous month and 0.1 percentage point higher than in April 2007.

In April 2008, the standardised unemployment rate in France was 7.8%, the same as the previous month and 0.7 percentage point lower than a year earlier. For Germany, the rate was 7.4% in April 2008, the same as the previous month and 1.1 percentage point lower than in April 2007. For Canada, the standardised unemployment rate was 6.1% in May 2008, the same as the previous month but 0.1 percentage point higher than a year earlier. In February 2008, the rate in the United Kingdom was 5.0%, the same as the previous month and 0.5 percentage point lower than a year earlier.