OECD countries, the world’s most developed economies, closed 2023 with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent and 33.2 million job seekers. That marks the lowest level in a series started in 2001 and the third consecutive year of decline.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlighted in a statement that, throughout the year, unemployment never exceeded 5 percent. In the final month, rates were stable in 21 OECD members, rose in seven, and fell in five. Only two countries, Luxembourg and Spain, posted unemployment levels 3.5 percentage points higher than their annual lows, while Israel, Latvia, Poland, and Slovenia reached their yearly lows.
The data showed gender parity in overall stability, with unemployment at 5 percent among women and 4.7 percent among men, consistent across all age groups. However, youth unemployment rose significantly in Austria, Iceland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic.
In ten OECD countries, youth unemployment exceeded 20 percent, with Spain at 28.6 percent leading the statistic. Others in this group included Colombia at 21.4 percent, Portugal at 23.1 percent, and Sweden at 24 percent.
Within the European Union and the euro area, unemployment finished at historically low levels, 5.9 percent and 6.4 percent respectively. In December, Austria was the only country among these groups to see an uptick. Outside Europe, notable increases occurred in December in Colombia, moving from 10.3 to 10.8 percent, and in South Korea, which stood at 3.3 percent after 2.8 percent previously.
In Spain, the unemployment rate fell by one-tenth of a percentage point to 11.7 percent, the highest among OECD member countries.