Developed nations see fall in unemployment rates

Overall unemployment levels are slowly declining in many of the developed countries, probably a first of its kind trend since the 2008 financial meltdown.

Latest data from the Paris-based OECD, a grouping of mostly developed nations, showed that jobless rate in the region slipped to 8.2 per cent in February - the fourth consecutive monthly decline.

The member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, that includes the US, Germany and France, account for over 60 per cent of global economy.

In January, OECD region registered an unemployment rate of 8.3 per cent. Throughout most of the last year, this area had witnessed a jobless rate of around 8.5 per cent.

"The February data shows, for the first time since the recent financial crisis, a pattern of declining or steady unemployment rates for the majority of OECD countries," OECD said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The unemployment rate fell in the euro area to 9.9 per cent, the first time back into single digits since December 2009," it added.

Euro area is a grouping of countries that share the common currency euro. The ravaging 2008 financial crisis, that had its origin in the US subprime crisis, saw millions of job losses in many countries as companies resorted to massive cost cutting moves.

In February, the unemployment rate in Germany declined to 6.3 per cent from 6.5 per cent in the previous month.

The US saw its jobless rate fall to 8.9 per cent in March from 9 per cent in January. The world's largest economy's unemployment rate further slipped to 8.8 per cent in March.

According to OECD, Austria, Korea, Mexico and Spain were the only countries seeing rise in jobless rates.

"Countries still experiencing very high unemployment rates include Hungary (12 per cent), Ireland (14.9 per cent), Portugal (11.1 per cent), the Slovak Republic (14 per cent) and Spain (20.5 per cent)," the statement said.