Unemployment in the OECD area remained unchanged at 7,9% in April, remaining 2,3 percentage points above the level of four years ago, before the outbreak of the crisis.
As emerges from the statistics released by the organization that brings together the 34 most industrialized countries, the differences are very large within the area. Eurozone marks stable unemployment compared to March at 11%, 3,7 points more than the minimum of 7,3% recorded in March 2008.
Italy shows an increase to 10,2% from 10,1% in March. In the USA the rate is instead 8,2%, with an increase of 0,1 points which interrupts the decline that began in August 2011. The highest unemployment is in Spain (24,3%, +0,2), ahead of Portugal (15,2%, +0,1) and Ireland (14,2%, +0,2), while the minimum rate is in Korea (3,4%, unchanged). Data for Greece are not available.
Youth unemployment (15-24 years) in the area is equal to 16,1%, unchanged compared to March, but it is almost 10 points more than that of adults (over 25 years). In April there were 47,3 million unemployed in the OECD area, 14,6 million more than in April 2008. There are 12 million young unemployed.
