On Thursday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its annual employment assessment, which showed that the world’s wealthiest nations are still struggling with aftereffects from the Great Recession.
Describing the recovery as “painfully slow”, the OECD characterized labor markets as showing “low investment, anemic productivity gains, and weak job creation with stagnant wages.”
The OECD, which is comprised of 35 democratic nations with free market economies, found that two-thirds of its member countries have high levels of unemployment. These countries include France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and the Slovak Republic, all of whom have double-digit unemployment rates.
While the U.S. has a low official unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, it has other issues related to employment, such as fewer participants in its labor force than before 2008.
The OECD report highlighted this issue in its report: “the share of working-age adults who are employed [in the U.S.] remains 3.4 percentage points below its pre-crisis level.”
The American jobs report for the month of June will be released on Friday.
The OECD report recommends that countries implement “high-performance work practices” to boost productivity, including “team work, job rotation, bonus pay, and flexibility in working hours.”
The OECD also emphasizes the need for support for those disadvantaged when it comes to becoming employed, particularly youth. “Health problems, skill deficits, and social isolation” can contribute to individuals being unable to find jobs.
Other than the U.S., countries with unemployment rates below five percent include the Czech Republic, Germany, South Korea, Mexico, Norway, Iceland, Japan, and Switzerland.
