Employment policies and data

Online OECD Employment database

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Our online Employment database offers a large range up-to-date statistics for international comparisons and trends over time.

Find data on:

Labour market outcomes		Jobs quality
Unemployment rates, employment to population ratio and labour force participation rates Unemployment, employment, labour force and population of working age (15-64) Unemployment duration Discouraged workers		Job duration Incidence of temporary employment Working time Incidence of part-time employment Involuntary part-time workers Economic short-time workers Average annual wages per full-time and full-year equivalent employee Distribution of gross earnings of full-time employees and gender wage gap
Labour market policies and institutions		Short-term indicators
Expenditures on and participants to labour market programmes Strictness of employment protection Statutory minimum wages in 21 OECD countries Union members and employees		Harmonised unemployment rates and levels Employment by industry Unit labour costs Job vacancies
Scoreboards		How does your country compare?
Scoreboard for youth aged 15-24 Older workers scoreboard		In our Key employment statistics , find summary tables for your country with key indicators on labour market outcomes and policies and how they compare with the OECD average. With our country snapshots (Excel tool), generate a figure with selected key indicators on labour market outcomes and policies

Basic statistical concepts: employment, unemployment
and activity in Labour Force Surveys

National Labour Force Surveys (LFS) are the best way to capture unemployment and employment according to the ILO guidelines that define the criteria for a person to be considered as unemployed or employed. These criteria are summarised below (for further details on national LFS, click here):

Employment - Persons in civilian employment include all those employed above a specified age who during a specified brief period, either one week or one day, were in the following categories: i) paid employment; ii) employers and self-employed; iii) unpaid family workers; unpaid family workers at work should be considered as being self-employed irrespective of the number of hours worked during the reference period. For operational purposes, the notion of some work may be interpreted as work for at least one hour. Total employment is defined as the sum of civilian employment and members of the armed forces.
Unemployment - The unemployed comprise all persons above a specified age, who during the reference period were: i) without work, i.e. were not in paid employment or self-employment during the reference period; ii) currently available for work, i.e. were available for paid employment or self-employment during the reference period; iii) seeking work, i.e. had taken specific steps in a specified recent period to seek paid employment or self-employment.
Labour Force - The Civilian Labour Force, or currently active population, comprises all persons who fulfill the requirements for inclusion among the civilian employed or the unemployed. Total Labour Force is equal to Civilian Labour Force plus the members of the armed forces.

While data from LFS make international comparisons easier compared to a mixture of survey and registration data, there are some differences across countries in coverage, survey timing, etc, that may affect international comparisons of labour market outcomes. In this context, harmonised unemployment rates for 27 OECD countries are presented in the Statistical Annex (Table A) of our annual flagship publication, the OECD Employment Outlook.

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Harmonised unemployment rates (annual, quarterly and monthly data)

Definition:
. Unemployment rate : unemployed persons divided by the civilian labour force.
In so far as possible, the data have been adjusted to conform to the guidelines of the International Labour Office. All series are benchmarked to labour-force-survey-based estimates. For a fuller description, click here

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data in percentages and in levels (click here)

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Unemployment rates, employment to population ratio and labour force participation rates

Definition:
. Unemployment rate : unemployed persons divided by the labour force.
. Employment to population ratio: persons in employment divided by the population
. Labour force participation rate: persons in the labour force divided by the population
Data are expressed in percentages. Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys.

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data broken down by sex and age (click here)

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Unemployment, employment, labour force and population of working age (15-64)

Definition: Data are expressed in thousands of persons. Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys.

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data broken down by sex and age (click here)
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Unemployment duration

Definition: Total unemployment is broken down by unemployment durations. For each unemployment duration, data are expressed in % of total unemployment (and are further broken down by sex and age groups) or in thousands of persons.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. Differences across countries in questionnaire wording and design, survey timing, the age groups covered and other reasons mean that care is required in interpreting cross-country differences in levels. For further details, click here.

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data expressed as a percentage of total unemployment (click here)
data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)
average unemployment duration, expressed in months (click here)

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Discouraged workers

Definition: Discouraged workers are persons who desire to work, but who are not in the labour force, believing that there is no work available due to various reasons. Data are expressed in % of labour force and % of total population (aged 15-64), or in thousands of persons. They are broken down by sex and age groups.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys.

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data expressed as a percentage of labour force/population (click here)
data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)
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Job duration

Definition: Total employment is broken down by job tenure intervals. For each interval, data are expressed in thousands of persons. Average job durations, expressed in years, are also available.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys.

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employment by job tenure (click here)
average job durations (click here)
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Incidence of temporary employment

Definition: Total employment is broken down by type of work contract (in the main job), temporary vs. permanent contract.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. Differences across countries in questionnaire wording and design, survey timing, the age groups covered and other reasons mean that care is required in interpreting cross-country differences in levels. For further details, click here.

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data expressed as a percentage of total employment (click here)
data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)

To know more..

Read the note on permanent and temporary workers

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Working time

Definition: Employment is broken down by hour bands of usual weekly hours worked in the main job (1-19 hours, 20-29 hours, 30-34 hours, 35-39 hours, 40 hours or more).
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. For further details, click here.

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data expressed as a percentage of total employment (click here)
data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)
average number of hours usually worked per week per person in employment (click here)

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Annual hours worked

Definition: Average annual hours actually worked per person in employment. The concept used is the total number of hours worked over the year divided by the average number of people in employment. Part-time workers are covered as well as full-time workers. National estimates are based on the best available sources. For further details, click here. The data are intended for comparisons of trends over time; they are unsuitable for comparisons of level of average annual hours of work for a given year, because of differences in their sources.

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average number of hours actually worked per year per person in employment (click here)

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Incidence of part-time employment

Definition: Data on full-time and part-time employment based on a common definition of full-time work, 30-usual weekly hours of work in the main job.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. For further details, click here.

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data expressed as a percentage of total employment (click here)
data expressed in thousand of persons (click here)
data based on national definitions of full-time work, as a percentage of total employment (click here)
data based on national definitions of full-time work, in thousands of persons (click here)
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Involuntary part-time workers

Definition: Involuntary part-time workers are part-timers (working less than 30-usual hours per week) because they could not find a full-time job (note: definitions are not harmonised, which hampers cross-country comparisons).
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. For further details, click here

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data expressed as a percentage of total part-time employment, total employment, labour force or population (click here)
data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)
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Economic short-time workers

Definition: Economic short-time workers comprise workers who are working less than usual due to business slack, plant stoppage, or technical reasons (note: definitions are not harmonised, which hampers cross-county comparisons).
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys. For further details, click here

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data expressed in thousands of persons (click here)
data expressed as a percentage of total part-time employment, total employment, labour force or population (click here)

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Average annual wages per full-time and full-year equivalent employee

Definition: Average annual wages per full-time equivalent dependent employee are obtained by dividing the National Accounts based total wage bill by the average number of employees in the total economy, which is then multiplied by the ratio of average usual weekly hours per full-time employee to average usually weekly hours for all employees. For more details, click here.

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data are expressed in current prices or 2009 constant prices and NCU, or in 2009 or 2010 USD exchange rates or USD PPPs at 2009 or 2010 constant prices (click here)

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Distribution of gross earnings of full-time employees, gender wage gap

Definition: This dataset contains three earnings-dispersion measures - ratio of 9th-to-1st, 9th-to-5th and 5th-to-1st - where ninth, fifth (or median) and first deciles are upper-earnings decile limits, unless otherwise indicated, of gross earnings of full-time dependent employees. The dataset also includes a series on the incidence of low-paid workers defined as the share in total dependent employment of workers earning less than two-thirds of median earnings.

The gender wage gap is calculated as the difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men.

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decile ratios of gross earnings, by gender (click here)
gender wage gap and incidence of low pay (click here, for time series click here)

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Labour Market Programmes (LMP)

Definition: Labour market programmes include public employment services, training, hiring subsidies and direct job creations in the public sector, as well as unemployment benefits.

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Public expenditure and participant stocks on LMP

respectively expressed in millions of national currency units and thousands of persons (click here)
respectively, as a percentage of GDP and a percentage of labour force (click here)

To know more...

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Synthetic Indicators of Employment Protection

Definition: The OECD indicators of employment protection measure the procedures and costs involved in dismissing individuals or groups of workers and the procedures involved in hiring workers on fixed-term or temporary work agency contracts.
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indicators of overall strictness of EPL in 2008 (click here)
its time series of EPL changes, 1985-2008 (click here)

To know more...

Special page on the OECD Indicators of employment protection

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Statutory minimum wages in 21 OECD countries

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statutory minimum wages in national currency units, at current prices (click here)
real hourly minimum wages in USD exchange rates (click here)
real hourly minimum wages in USD PPP (click here)
minimum relative to mean and median wages of full-time workers (click here)

To know more…

Making the Most of the Minimum: Statutory Minimum Wages, Employment and Poverty, OECD Employment Outlook, 1998.
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Union members and employees

Definition: Union members and employees are expressed in units. Trade union density is defined as the percentage of employees who are members of a trade-union.
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Data on the number of trade union members and employees (click here)
Trade union density in OECD countries, 1960-2011 (click here)

To know more…

Sources of Data on Trade Union Members and Union density

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Scoreboards

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Scoreboard on youth aged 15-24 (click here)
Older workers scoreboard (click here)

To know more...

special page on the youth
special page on ageing and employment policies

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Employment by industry (annual, quarterly and monthly data)

Definition: Employment is presented in total and by broad industry.
Estimates are derived from national Labour Force Surveys.

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Employment total and by broad industry (click here)

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Unit labour costs (annual and quarterly data)

Definition: ULC measure the average cost of labour per unit of output. They are calculated as the ratio of total labour costs to real output, or equivalently, as the ratio of mean labour costs per hour to labour productivity (output per hour). For further details click here.

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