THE unemployment rate in member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) continued to decline to 6.9% in November 2020, with a faster decrease noted among women, the global body noted on Wednesday.

The November unemployment figures fell from 7.1% in October but remained 1.7 percentage points above the level observed in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the labour market, the OECD said.

"45.5 million persons were unemployed in the OECD area [in November], 10.7 million more than in February," the body said.

It continued to decline faster among women, from 7.2% in October to 7% in November, than among men, from 6.9% to 6.8%.

The OECD are unemployment among youth slipped to 14.3% from 14.4% in October, and for people aged 25 and above, from 6.1% to 6%.

In November, the unemployment rate in the Euro area decreased to 8.3% from 8.4% in October, but remained 1.1 percentage points above its February level.

Declines of 0.3 percentage point or more were observed in Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal, while increases of 0.2 percentage point or more were registered in France, Ireland and Spain.

In the US, where the number of people on temporary lay-off declined at a slower pace in November than in previous months, and in Canada, the unemployment rate in November fell by 0.2 and 0.4 percentage point respectively, to 6.7% and 8.5%. In both countries the rate was about three percentage points higher than in February.

The November unemployment rate decreased in Japan to 2.9% from 3.1%, remaining higher than in February by 0.5 percentage point. Marginal declines were also observed in South Korea to 4.1%.

It should be noted that unemployment statistics do not account for the full amount of labour market slack due to Covid-19, as some non-employed persons may be classified as "out of the labour force" because, due to the pandemic, they are either not able to actively look for a job or are not available to work.