OECD area unemployment rate stable in January

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - The unemployment rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) area showed no change in January compared to the previous month, the organization said on Wednesday.

The rate was 6.8% in January, almost the same in the last three months, according to a statement by the OECD.

However, the January figure was up 1.5 percentage points from the same month last year, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the labor market.
The OECD unemployment rate for women stood at 7%, while it was 6.6% for men in the month.

The youth unemployment rate for people aged between 15-24 in the OECD area fell slightly to 14.0% in January, from 14.2% in December 2020.
The unemployment rate slipped by 0.4 percentage point in the US to 6.3% in January, the statement noted, adding it declined further in February to 6.2%, driven by a decrease in the number of people on temporary layoff.

The figure was also was stable in the eurozone at 8.1% for the third consecutive month, with the largest declines registered by 0.2 percentage point or more in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, while increases of 0.2 percentage point or more were observed in Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, and Slovakia.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Turkish Statistical Institute announced that Turkey's unemployment rate improved from 12.6% in December 2020 to 12.2% in January 2021.