Long abstract

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The standardised unemployment rate for the OECD area remained at 5.8% in December 2006, the same as the previous month but 0.6 percentage point lower than a year earlier.
In the Euro area, the standardised unemployment rate was 7.5% in December 2006, 0.1 percentage point lower than the previous month and 0.9 percentage point lower than a year earlier. The United States’ standardised unemployment rate for January 2007 was 4.6%, 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous month but 0.1 percentage point lower than a year earlier. For Japan, the rate was 4.1% in December 2006, 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous month but 0.3 percentage point lower than in December 2005.