The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said unemployment is expected to start increasing this year after declining steadily in recent years.

“The declining trend in unemployment in recent years is projected to reverse in 2008, with the number of unemployed persons in the OECD area increasing by 1 million persons in 2008 and by nearly a further 2 million in 2009,” the organisation said in its annual employment outlook.

It expects OECD area unemployment to rise to 32.9 million this year and to 34.8 million next year from 31.9 million in 2007.

The unemployment rate is projected to edge up to 5.7 percent this year from 5.6 percent last year and then to rise to 6.0 percent in 2009, returning to its 2006 level.

With the world economy losing momentum, employment growth is expected to slow from 1.5 percent last year to 0.7 percent in 2008 and 0.5 percent in 2009, which will mean that it is no longer keeping pace with the growth of the labour force.

As a result the growth rate of real compensation per employee is forecast to ease to 0.5 percent in 2008 from 1.2 percent in 2007, the OECD said.

Source: http://www.afxnews.com

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