Employment, labour participation at record highs

Employment and labour force participation rates stayed steady at their record high levels to close out 2023, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports.

The Paris-based group said the overall employment rate across the OECD was 70.1% in the fourth quarter of last year, and the labour force participation rate came in at 73.8% — which marked the highest levels on record for both metrics.

The employment rate exceeded 70% in almost two-thirds of the OECD countries — including Canada, the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the U.K. — in the fourth quarter.

And the OECD said that the gender gap narrowed, as the employment rate improved by one percentage point for women, outpacing a 0.3 percentage point increase for men.

In the wake of these record employment and labour force participation rates at the end of 2023, the OECD said the jobless rate remained stable in early 2024 at just 4.9% for the OECD overall, and sat at record lows in Europe.

More recently, signs of slack in certain labour markets have started to appear however.

For instance, in March, the unemployment rate increased slightly to 5.4% in Canada, the OECD said.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.