Jobs recovery to remain weak in 2015, says OECD

The OECD published its Employment Outlook 2014 on the 3 September 2014. Twenty one EU Member States, plus Australia, the US, Canada, Korea, Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan and New Zealand are members of the OECD.

Unemployment would remain well above its pre-crisis levels in 2015 year in most OECD countries, despite modest declines over the rest of 2014 and in 2015 according to the report.

The Outlook also analysed the impact of the crisis on wages. It found that real wage growth had come to a virtual standstill since 2009 and wages actually fell in a number of countries by between 2% and 5% a year on average, including in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain.

The jobless outlook for 2015 diverged widely among countries, with unemployment falling but still remaining very high in Spain (around 24%) and Greece (around 27%). The euro area would see joblessness decline to 11.2% at the end of 2015, from 11.6% in mid-2014, and above 10% in Italy, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. Unemployment was forecast to fall below 5% by the end of 2015 in Austria, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland.

EUObserver, 04.09.14: Unemployment on slow downward trend, report says http://euobserver.com/social/125465

OECD: Employment: Employment policies and data: Employment Outlook http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/oecdemploymentoutlook.htm

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