The OECD area unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% in April, a 0.1 percentage point fall from March after two months of stability at 8.2%. This is a continuation of the steady decline in the unemployment rate seen since October 2010. The Euro area unemployment rate was stable at 9.9%

Selected Unemployment Rates, s.a.

March 2011 - April 2011 (1)



(1) United Kingdom: January 2011—February 2011.

For the first time since the start of the financial crisis in 2007, unemployment rates are showing a mostly falling pattern in most OECD countries. Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Slovenia and the United States were the only countries whose unemployment rates rose in April. New May 2011 data for the United States show a further rise of 0.1 percentage point to 9.1%.

Countries experiencing continuously high unemployment rates include Hungary (11.6%), Ireland (14.7%), Portugal (12.6%), and the Slovak Republic (13.9%). Spain’s steady 20.7% unemployment rate means that, since May 2010, more than one in five people in the Spanish labour force has been unemployed and seeking work.

There were 44.1 million unemployed persons in OECD countries in April 2011, down 3.1 million from April 2010 but still 13.2 million higher than in April 2008.