The unemployment rate for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development area fell month-on-month by 0.6% in August 2020 to 7.4%. However, the rate remained 2.2% above the level observed in February, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the labour market.

The OECD reported 48.4 million persons were unemployed in the OECD area in August 2020, 13.5 million more than in February 2020.

For the labour market data, the OECD cautioned that some care is needed in interpreting recent falls in the unemployment rate, as this largely reflects the return of temporary laid-off workers in the US and Canada, where they are recorded as unemployed.

In August, in Japan, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 3.0%. It fell by 0.7% in Australia to 6.8% and decreased by 1.0% to 3.2% in South Korea.

In the euro area, where temporary lay-offs are not included in unemployment statistics, the unemployment rate continued to increase (to 8.1% in August, from 8.0% in July), with increases of 0.3% or more in France (to 7.5%), Lithuania (to 9.6%) and Spain (to 16.2%). The unemployment rate remained unchanged in Iceland (5.0%). Meanwhile the jobless rate rose slightly in Israel (by 0.2% to 4.9%).

In August, the unemployment rate fell by 0.7%, to 10.2%, in Canada, and by 1.8%, to 8.4%, in the US. In September, the unemployment rate continued to fall in Canada (to 9.0%) and the US (to 7.9%). However, excluding temporary lay-offs from unemployment statistics reveals a similar upward trend in unemployment, since the onset of the pandemic, to that seen in most other countries. On this basis unemployment rates were 3.9 and 1.6% higher in Canada and the US in August compared to February.