The International Labour Organisation (ILO) considers people of working age to be in one (and one only) of three situations in the labour market: employed, unemployed, or inactive. The employed and unemployed together are known as the labour force.
Read moreA closely watched indicator is the unemployment rate (the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labour force). The unemployment rate tracks what economists call “labour slack” – the match between the jobs on offer in an economy and the number of people seeking to work – and is a key indicator of a society’s economic and social well-being.
Read moreLabour force data are typically analysed by gender, age group (youth, prime age, older). They are also frequently broken down in many other ways for specific policy purposes: by economic sector, by occupation, by level of education, full- and part-time workers, the short- and long-term unemployed.
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OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.2% in September 2019
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OECD Unemployment Rates
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13/11/2019 - The OECD unemployment rate was stable at 5.2% in September 2019. Across the OECD area, 33.1 million people were unemployed. In the euro area, the unemployment rate was also stable in September, at 7.5%. The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point in Luxembourg (to 5.4%) but increased by 0.3 percentage point in Italy (to 9.9%) and by 0.2 percentage point in Portugal (to 6.6%), with changes of 0.1 percentage point or less in other countries.
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Behind the numbers
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Further statistics on the labour market |
Related labour topics |