Many of OECD Countries See Unemployment Inch Up

Across the OECD, unemployment stood at 4.9 percent as of June. Many major economies, including the United States, have seen numbers slowly rise over the past years. However, U.S. unemployment was still lower than in other nations and below the OECD average, standing at a harmonized 4.2 percent most recently.

Countries in Southern Europe and Latin American saw some of the highest unemployment rates across the OECD, but overall registered them falling. Scandinavian nations Sweden and Finland, on the other hand, saw high unemployment that was rising, to 8.9 percent as of the latest reading in Sweden and 10.3 percent in Finland. Unemployment was also high in Canada at 6.5 percent, Turkey at 7.6 percent and France at 8.2 percent.

While U.S. rates were low in comparison, countries like Germany, Japan and the Czech Republic saw even lower unemployment.