OECD unemployment rate continues to fall

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - After starting the year at 5.4 percentage points, in May the OECD unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percentage point for the second consecutive month to reach 5.2 percent, the OECD said on Tuesday.

A total of 33.2 million people were unemployed in the OECD area in May, with some extra 500,000 unemployed compared to April 2008 -- on the ever of the global financial crisis -- and some 16.1 million less compared to its peak in January 2013.

The unemployment rate in the euro area was stable in May -- at 8.4 percent -- reaching 13.7 million people, according to the OECD report.

In Turkey, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.9 percent in the first quarter of the year -- totaling some 3.16 million people -- versus 10.1 percent or 3.22 million people in the last quarter of 2017.

The unemployment rate in the U.S., which started the year at 4.1 percentage points, slipped to 3.8 percent in May, but bounced back to 4 percent in June.

The report also said the OECD unemployment rate for youth -- people age 15-24 -- stood at 10.9 percent in May.

Figures indicated that youth unemployment fell by 0.3 percentage points in the euro area -- reaching 16.8 percent -- with drops of 0.5 percentage points or more in Italy, Latvia, and Spain for the same period.

"However, the youth unemployment rate remained above 30 percent in Greece (43.2 percent in March -- the latest month available), Spain (33.8 percent) and Italy (31.9 percent)," the report said.

The next data on this subject will be released on Sept. 11.