THE OECD unemployment rate was stable at 5.3% in March 2019. Across the OECD area, 33.6 million people were unemployed in March, 0.1 million more than in February.
In the euro area, the unemployment rate declined in March by 0.1 percentage point, to 7.7% (its lowest level since September 2008), falling by 0.3 percentage point in Ireland (to 4.7%), Italy (to 10.2%) and Lithuania (to 5.8%) and by 0.2 percentage point in Spain (to 14.0%).
Outside Europe, the unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point in Japan (to 2.5%) and by 0.1 percentage point in Korea (to 3.8%) and Mexico (to 3.5%), while it fell by 0.2 percentage point in Israel (to 3.9%). The unemployment rate was stable in both Canada (at 5.8%) and the United States (at 3.8%). More recent data show that in April 2019 the unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage point in the United States (to 3.6%, its lowest level since December 1969) and by 0.1 percentage point in Canada (to 5.7%).
In March, the difference between OECD unemployment rates for women (at 5.3%) and men (at 5.2%) almost disappeared. The OECD unemployment rate for youth (people aged 15 to 24) decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 11.2%, with a fall of 0.4 percentage point in the unemployment rate for young women (to 10.5%), contrasting with an increase of 0.2 percentage point in the rate for young men (to 11.8%). In the euro area, the youth unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage point (to 16.0%), with declines of 0.5 percentage point or more in Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Spain and an increase by 0.5 percentage point in Luxembourg.
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