OECD: Unemployment in the Eurozone is far above the average

Long-term unemployment in developed economies-members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) decreased in December, but in the Eurozone it remained at greater levels than the average.

As OECD announced, the average unemployment rate in its 34 country-members stood at 7.6% of the workforce, a figure that translates to 46.2 million registered unemployed.

The unemployed are by 11.5 million more than they were at the start of the financial crisis in mid-2008, the OECD says in its monthly bulletin for unemployment.

Japan recorded the lowest unemployment rate at 3.7%, showing a decrease of 0.3 percentage points, while the U.S. unemployment rate fell by three points to 6.7%.

The unemployment rate in the Eurozone remained unchanged in December from its November levels, at 12.0%, with many differences between member-states.

In France, the rate remained stable at 10.8%, in Germany it stood at 5.1%, in Spain it declined slightly to 25.8%, in Ireland that left the memorandum it fell to 12.1% and in Italy at 12.7%.