The unemployment rate in the OECD area was stable at 5.8% in August 2017, unchanged since May. Overall, 36.1 million people were unemployed in the OECD area, 3.5 million more than in April 2008.
It was 9.2% in metropolitan France and 9.5% when including the overseas departments.
The unemployment rate was stable in the euro area in August, at 9.1% for the third consecutive month. The largest decreases in the euro area were observed in Latvia (a decrease of 0.3 percentage points, to 8.2%) and the Slovak Republic (a decrease of 0.2 percentage points, to 7.5%), while the largest increase was recorded in Austria (an increase of 0.2 percentage points, to 5.6%).
The unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points in Canada (to 6.2%, the third consecutive monthly decrease), while it increased by 0.2 percentage points in Korea (to 3.8%), and by 0.1 percentage points in Mexico (to 3.3%) and the United States (to 4.4%).
It remained stable in Japan, at 2.8%. More recent data indicates that in September, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points in the United States, to 4.2%, while it remained stable in Canada.
