In September 2010, the OECD area unemployment rate was 8.5%, unchanged from August and broadly stable since June 2010. New October 2010 unemployment rates for the United States (unchanged at 9.6%), and Canada (down slightly by 0.1 percentage point to 7.9%), confirm this overall stability.

Diverging trends are evident at the national level. Germany‘s September 6.7% unemployment rate has been declining steadily, and is lower than the 8.4% rate reported in 2007. Unemployment rates in Korea (3.7%), the Netherlands (4.4%) and Austria (4.5%) remain comparatively low, while Spain (20.8%) the Slovak Republic (14.7%) and Ireland (14.1%) are still experiencing high and rising unemployment rates.

The OECD area unemployment level remains close to post-war highs. There were 45.5 million unemployed persons in OECD countries in September 2010, down 0.6 million from September 2009 but 15.4 million higher than in September 2007.

Selected Unemployment Rates, s.a.

August 2010 - September 2010 (1)


(1) United Kingdom: June 2010 - July 2010