THE share of the working-age population with jobs in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries rose by 1 percentage point in October-December (Q4) 2020, to 66.7 per cent. However, the employment rate remained 1.9 percentage points below the numbers observed in Q1 of the year.

In the same period, the OECD labour force participation rate increased by 0.4 percentage points, to 71.7 per cent, still 0.9 percentage point below its level in Q1 of 2020.

In the Euro area, the employment rate continued to increase to 67.3 per cent in Q4 from 66.8 per cent in the previous quarter. However, it remained 0.7 percentage point below the rate observed in the first quarter of 2020. Compared to Q3, the largest increases, of 1.0 percentage point or more, in this area were registered in Estonia (to 74.1 per cent), Luxembourg (to 68 per cent), and Portugal (to 69.5 per cent).

The employment rate in the United States continued to increase by 1.5 percentage points, to 67.9 per cent, in Q4, then by 0.5 percentage point, to 68.4 per cent, in the January-March, 2021. This is a slower pace than in Q3 of 2020, as the number of furloughed workers returning to work diminished. However, in the first quarter of 2021, the employment rate remained 2.9 percentage points below the rate observed in the corresponding year-ago period.

In Q4 of 2020, large increases of 1.4 percentage points or more were observed in Colombia (to 59.9 per cent), Chile (to 55.5 per cent), Mexico (to 59.1 per cent), Canada (to 72.0 per cent) and Australia (to 73.5 per cent). The employment rate increased marginally in Japan (to 77.3 per cent), while it declined by 0.3 percentage point in the United Kingdom (to 75.0 per cent) and Israel (to 65.8 per cent).

For youth, aged 15 to 24, employment rate continued to rise faster than that for the OECD as a whole, as it went up by 1.4 percentage points, to 39.6 per cent.

The OECD cautioned that a large part of the increase in Q3 and, to a lesser extent, Q4 of 2020 reflects the return to work of furloughed workers in Canada and the United States, where they are recorded as unemployed, whereas in most other countries, they are recorded as employed.