Islamabad
The unemployment rate in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries increased slightly in April to 6.6 percent from 6.5 percent in March, the first monthly increase since the April 2020 peak.
The total number of unemployed workers across the OECD area, which includes eurozone countries as well as the US, Australia, Japan and the UK, among others, rose by 0.7 million to reach 43.8 million in April, despite the global economy slowly recovering from the Covid-19 crisis as the vaccination drive ramps up.
While unemployment is down from the 8.8 percent figure recorded in April last year, the OECD said “some care is needed in interpreting the fall in the OECD area unemployment rate compared to the April 2020 peak”.
“This largely reflects the return of temporary laid-off workers in the US and Canada, where they are recorded as unemployed,” the OECD said.
