BBC News | BUSINESS | How do world job rates compare?

With just about one million people out of work, UK unemployment is at its lowest level for 20 years.

The Labour government is widely expected to trumpet this fact in the run-up to the anticipated election in early May.

Unemployment in the UK may be lower than the European average, but it is still higher than in the US or in some European countries.

While the UK calculates that the unemployment rate is 3.5%, the International Labour Organisation, which include people not claiming benefit, claims the figure is closer to 5.3%, still a drop of 0.6% from this time last year.

That compares with 4.2% in the United States, and 4.6% in Japan, despite the country's worst recession since the Second World War.

World Employment Figures (Source: ILO)
160 million workers are unemployed
50 million of the unemployed are in industrialised countries
500 million workers are unable to keep their families above the $1 poverty line
460 million new young jobseekers over the next 10 years - 2/3 of them in Asia
500 million new jobs needed over the next decade

Unemployment stood at 8.8% in the eurozone - the European countries participating in the euro - in January, compared with 9.5% this time last year.

Among the 15 European Union countries, the unemployment rate in January was 8%.

While Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe at 13.7%, some of the lowest rates in the world are enjoyed by Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Some of the most biggest falls have been seen in Ireland, Sweden and France, previously one of the countries with the most stubbornly high unemployment rates.

But outside the world's rich countries, unemployment is much higher.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that one-third of the world's workers are unemployed or underemployed.

Improving Europe

The European Commissioner for employment and social affairs Anna Diamantopoulou is among the first to admit that Europe needs to do better.

"We need to move back to full employment, to more and better jobs. 14 million unemployed is still far too high," she said in a speech earlier this year.

While jobs have been lost in industry and agriculture in recent decades, their equivalent number have been created in the services sector, she argues.

Of the poor European performers, France and Germany have suffered some of the most stubborn unemployment

But, even France's unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since March 1991. Its unemployment rate was 9% in January, highlighting the improvement in France's economic fortunes since 1997, when unemployment rates were at 12.6%.

Europe in driving seat

It looks set to get easier to get a job in the member countries of the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development in the next few years, according to its own forecasts.

In January, the OECD-area unemployment standardised rate was 6.4% in January, the same level as December and 0.3 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

The OECD expects the overall unemployment rate to continue falling to reach a rate of about 6% of the labour force or 31.25 million people in 2001.

Unemployment will be falling fastest in Europe, the OECD says, as the US slowdown is expected to only have a limited effect on the European economy.

Eurozone exports to the US account for only about 2.7% of the bloc's nominal gross domestic product.

Prospects in the US and Japan are not as bright.

The US unemployment rate remained steady 4.2% in February, with job creation subdued by large scale layoffs by major corporations.

As recently as September last year, the US jobless rate was at a 30-year low of 3.9%

The OECD forecasts that the rate in Japan will be about 4.6% this year - only just below its all-time high of 4.9%- its highest level since the 1950s.

Unemployment there rose to a record 3.2 million last year, primarily as a result of corporate restructuring and cut backs due to heavy debt burdens.

Outside the OECD club, the news is slightly grimmer.

Earlier this year, the International Labour Organisation - the UN agency for labour - estimated that one billion people are unemployed or underemployed.

The ILO says the world will have to create 500 million jobs over the next decade.


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