OECD · Unemployment Rate (OECD, Monthly)

## What this measures

The share of the labour force across all 38 OECD members that has no job, is available to work and is looking for one, monthly, seasonally adjusted, both sexes, aged 15 and over. The OECD publishes it on the International Labour Organization definition so that rates compare across countries. Each month is dated its first day. History from January 2001.

## Why it matters

It is the most direct read of slack in the OECD economies, and the OECD carries it beside every member on one definition, which makes cross-country rankings and comparisons fair. Rising unemployment confirms a slowdown in hiring and spending; a falling rate means employers are competing for workers.

## How to read it

Higher means more people out of work. Watch the direction over three months: a rise of a few tenths of a point over a quarter is a real turn. Compare countries on the same period. Set it against the member countries (oecd.unemployment.<iso3>).

## What it does not say

It leaves out people who have stopped looking and part-time workers who want more hours. National surveys differ in detail (the U.S. survey counts people 16 and over), and the OECD takes each country's harmonised figure as published. Recent months are revised as surveys are benchmarked. Aggregates are weighted by labour force.

## Source

OECD, Infra-annual Labour Statistics, Monthly unemployment rates (dataflow OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_LFS@DF_IALFS_UNE_M), measure UNE_LF_M, % of labour force, calendar and seasonally adjusted, total, 15 years or over, monthly: https://data-explorer.oecd.org. Palanor reads it every day (/api/cron/oecd-unemployment-sync). Licence: OECD terms and conditions § 3, "you can extract from, download, copy, adapt, print, distribute, share and embed Data for any purpose, even for commercial use", with credit to the OECD (CC BY 4.0). Attribution: OECD.