Although unemployment rates across OECD countries are now close to pre-crisis levels, differences within countries remain high and can reach up to 20 percentage points, with youth unemployment exhibiting particularly high disparities.
Unemployment in the OECD area has decreased and, at 6.8% in 2017, is now close to the pre-crisis level. Despite the general reduction in unemployment in 70% of OECD regions, regional disparities remain substantial and almost unchanged. In 2017, unemployment rates differ by 6 percentage points within OECD countries, exactly the same average regional disparities as in 2011. However, while in 2011 almost one-fourth of the OECD regions had an unemployment rate above 10%, this share declined to 18% in 2017, representing 66 large regions. The largest regional disparities are found in Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece and Belgium, with a difference of at least 10 percentage points between the highest and lowest regional unemployment rates ( 2.10). Unemployment rates are generally lower in urban regions, with some exceptions like in Denmark or the United Kingdom, where they are one percentage point higher than in rural regions. Higher unemployment rates are mostly found in intermediate remote regions, which do not benefit from the proximity to cities. On the other hand, intermediate regions close to cities have seen faster decrease of unemployment.
