Statistical annex
Sources and definitions
The tables of the statistical annex show data for all 35 OECD countries. Data for Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and South Africa are included in a number of tables.
In general, Tables A to K and Table M report annual averages of monthly and quarterly estimates, when they are available, based on labour force surveys. The remaining Tables L, Table N, Table O, Table P and Table Q are based on a combination of survey and administrative sources. Data shown for a number of European countries in Tables B, Table C, Table D, Table H, Table I, Table J, Table K and Table M are based on the European Labour Force Survey (EU LFS), which are more comparable and sometime more consistent over time than data series from national LFS.
Statistical tables showing data for Israel are supplemented with the following footnote: “The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law”.
Data on employment, unemployment and the labour force are not necessarily the same as the series used for analyses and forecasting by the OECD Economics Department that are reported in the OECD Economic Outlook and included in the first figure and online annex tables of Chapter 1 of this publication.
Most of the statistics shown in these tables can also be found in the OECD central data repository OECD.Stat (http://stats.oecd.org) accessible from the web page dedicated to employment statistics (www.oecd.org/employment/database).
The database contains both raw data and derived statistics. It contains longer time series and more detailed datasets by age group, gender, educational attainment, employee job tenure, part-time employment, involuntary part-time employment, temporary employment, duration of unemployment, and other series than are shown in this annex, such as, the distribution of employment by weekly usual hours worked intervals, potential labour force including people marginally attached to the labour force, etc. The datasets include information on definitions, notes and sources used by member countries. The online database also contains additional series on working time, earnings and features of institutional and regulatory environments affecting the functioning of labour markets. Among these are the following:
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Annual hours worked for comparisons of trends over time.
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Average gross annual wages per dependent employee in full-time equivalent unit.
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Distribution of gross earnings of full-time workers by upper earnings decile cut-offs and by sex to compute earnings dispersion measures.
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Statutory minimum wages: levels and ratio of minimum-to-median wages.
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Public expenditure on labour market programmes, number of beneficiaries and inflows into the labour market.
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Union members and employees.
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Synthetic indicators of employment protection.
Conventional signs
.. Data not available
() Data based on small sample sizes
| Break in series
– Nil or less than half of the last digit used
Table A: Breaks in series have been adjusted in most countries to ensure that harmonised unemployment rates are consistent over time.
Tables B to K and Table M: Most of the breaks in series in the data shown in the tables occurred for any of the following reasons: changes in survey design, survey questionnaire, survey frequency and administration, revisions of data series based on updated population census results. These changes have affected the comparability over time of employment and/or unemployment levels and to a certain extent the ratios reported in the aforementioned tables:
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Introduction of a continuous survey producing quarterly results: Austria (2003/04), France (2002/03), Germany (2004/05), Hungary (2005/06, monthly results), Iceland (2002/03), Italy (2003/04), Luxembourg (2002/03, quarterly results as of 2007) and Turkey (2013/14).
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Redesign of labour force survey: Introduction of a new survey in Chile since April 2010 (see below), Germany (2010/11), Hungary (2002/03), Portugal (2010/11), Poland (2004/05) and Turkey (2004/05 from quarterly to monthly results). Israel (2011/12), change from quarterly to monthly survey results and a change from “civilian” to “total” labour force (including those who are in compulsory or permanent military service). New Zealand (2015/16), the survey includes non-civilian personnel. New continuous quarterly survey in Mexico since 2005 (Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo, ENOE) with a different questionnaire from that of the previous survey.
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Change in the operational definition of employment:
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Neat application of the criterion of “at least one hour worked in a gainful job” in the Chilean Nueva Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (NENE), a quarterly continuous survey, from April 2010 onward.
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Change in the operational definition of unemployment regarding:
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Active job-search methods: in particular a change from registration to contact with the public employment service: France (2002/03) and Spain (2000/01).
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Duration of active job search: In Australia (2014/15) the duration of unemployment has been replaced by duration of job search. In Belgium (2010/11), the duration of job search has been changed from an unlimited duration to previous four weeks including the survey reference week. In Chile (2009/10), the duration of active job search has been shortened from last two months to previous four weeks including the survey reference week.
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Availability to work criterion: In Sweden (2004/05), the work availability criterion changed from the reference week to two weeks from the reference week to be consistent with the operational definition in other EU countries. In Chile, the work availability criterion did not exist prior to 2010 in the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (ENE) and has been introduced in the Nueva Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (NENE) since April 2010. It has been fixed to two weeks from the end of the reference week.
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Persons on lay-off considered as employed instead of unemployed: Norway (2005/06).
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Other minor changes: Australia (2000/01) and Poland (2003/04).
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Changes in the questionnaire with impact on employment and unemployment estimates: Germany (2010/11): new questionnaire design ensures better coverage of small jobs. This leads to higher than normal annual employment increase. Impact on employment and unemployment statistics in New Zealand (2015/16) with the inclusion of army personnel. Spain (2004/05): impact on employment and unemployment and impact on unemployment estimates in Norway (2005/06) and Sweden (2004/05).
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Change from seasonal to calendar quarters: Switzerland (2009/10) and the United Kingdom (2005/06). However, there is no break in series between 2005 and 2006 for the United Kingdom as calendar-quarter-based historical series are available since 1992.
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Introduction of new EU harmonised questionnaire: Sweden (2004/05) and Turkey (2003/04).
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Change in lower age limit from 16 to 15 years: Iceland (2008/09), Norway (2005/06) and Sweden (2006/07).
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Change in lower age limit from 15 to 16 years: Italy (2007/08).
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In Norway, since 2006, age is defined as years reached at the survey reference week, instead of completed years at the end of the year, as in previous years.
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Inclusion of population controls based on census results in the estimation process: Mexico (2009/10) and Turkey (2006/07).
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In Japan, data for 2011 exclude three prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima) due to the temporary suspension of the labour force survey operation following the Great East Japan earthquake.
Further explanations on breaks in series and their impact on employment and unemployment levels and on ratios can be found at: www.oecd.org/employment/outlook.
Colombia, Costa Rica and Lithuania are currently undergoing an accession process.
Note: The OECD harmonised unemployment rates are compiled for 35 OECD member countries and conform to the guidelines of the 13th Conference of Labour Statisticians of the International Labour Office (referred to as the ILO guidelines). In so far as possible, the data have been adjusted to ensure comparability over time. All series are benchmarked to labour-force-survey-based estimates. The unemployment rates for the European Union member countries, Norway and Turkey are produced by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat). For the remaining OECD countries, the OECD is responsible for collecting data and calculating unemployment rates. Please refer to the following URL for methodological notes: www.oecd.org/std/labourstatistics/44743407.pdf.
a. Weighted average.
Source: OECD (2017), Main Economic Indicators, Vol. 2017/5, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/mei-v2017-5-en.
a. The introduction of a new labour force survey since April 2010 caused a break in series between 2009 and 2010. To remove the break, data prior to 2010 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients based on data of fourth quarter of 2009.
b. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
c. The introduction of a redesigned monthly labour force survey since January 2012 caused a break in series between 2011 and 2012. To remove the break, data prior to 2012 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients between monthly and quarterly surveys based on data of fourth quarter of 2011.
d. Weighted average.
e. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
f. Data for 2015 refer to 2010 for China, 2012 for India and 2013 for Indonesia.
Source: Source and definition: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
a. The introduction of a new labour force survey since April 2010 caused a break in series between 2009 and 2010. To remove the break, data prior to 2010 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients based on data of fourth quarter of 2009.
b. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
c. The introduction of a redesigned monthly labour force survey since January 2012 caused a break in series between 2011 and 2012. To remove the break, data prior to 2012 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients between monthly and quarterly surveys based on data of fourth quarter of 2011.
d. Weighted average.
e. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
f. Data for 2015 refer to 2010 for China, 2012 for India and 2013 for Indonesia.
Source: Source and definition: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
a. The introduction of a new labour force survey since April 2010 caused a break in series between 2009 and 2010. To remove the break, data prior to 2010 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients based on data of fourth quarter of 2009.
b. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
c. The introduction of a redesigned monthly labour force survey since January 2012 caused a break in series between 2011 and 2012. To remove the break, data prior to 2012 are spliced using new-to-old chaining coefficients between monthly and quarterly surveys based on data of fourth quarter of 2011.
d. Weighted average.
e. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
f. Data for 2015 refer to 2010 for China, 2012 for India and 2013 for Indonesia.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
Note: In most countries data refer to ISCED 2011. The countries with data that refer to ISCED-97 are: Brazil and the Russian Federation. See the description of the levels of education in www.oecd.org/els/emp/definitions-education.pdf.
a. Year of reference 2013.
b. Year of reference 2014.
c. Data for total tertiary education include upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary programmes (less than 5% of the adults are under this group).
d. Data for upper secondary attainment include completion of a sufficient volume and standard of programmes that would be classified individually as completion of intermediate upper secondary programmes (18% of the adults are under this group).
e. Unweighted average.
Source: OECD (2016), Education at a Glance, Indicator A5, www.oecd.org/edu/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htm.
Note: In most countries data refer to ISCED 2011. The countries with data that refer to ISCED-97 are: Brazil and the Russian Federation. See the description of the levels of education in www.oecd.org/els/emp/definitions-education.pdf.
a. Year of reference 2013.
b. Year of reference 2014.
c. Data for total tertiary education include upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary programmes (less than 5% of the adults are under this group).
d. Data for upper secondary attainment include completion of a sufficient volume and standard of programmes that would be classified individually as completion of intermediate upper secondary programmes (18% of the adults are under this group).
e. Unweighted average.
Source: OECD (2016), Education at a Glance, Indicator A5, www.oecd.org/edu/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htm.
Note: In most countries data refer to ISCED 2011. The countries with data that refer to ISCED-97 are: Brazil and the Russian Federation. See the description of the levels of education in www.oecd.org/els/emp/definitions-education.pdf.
a. Year of reference 2013.
b. Year of reference 2014.
c. Data for total tertiary education include upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary programmes (less than 5% of the adults are under this group).
d. Data for upper secondary attainment include completion of a sufficient volume and standard of programmes that would be classified individually as completion of intermediate upper secondary programmes (18% of the adults are under this group).
e. Unweighted average.
Source: OECD (2016), Education at a Glance, Indicator A5, www.oecd.org/edu/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htm.
a. Part-time employment refers to persons who usually work less than 30 hours per week in their main job.
b. Part-time employment based on hours worked at all jobs.
c. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
d. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
e. Data are based on actual hours worked.
f. Data are for wage and salary workers only.
g. Weighted average.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database. See van Bastelaer, A., G. Lemaître and P. Marianna (1997), “The Definition of Part-Time Work for the Purpose of International Comparisons”, Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Paper, No. 22, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/132721856632.
← a. Involuntary part-time employment refers to part-time workers who could not find full-time work.
← b. Part-time employment is based on national definitions.
c. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
d. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
e. Weighted average.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
← a. Temporary employees are wage and salary workers whose job has a pre-determined termination date as opposed to permanent employees whose job is of unlimited duration. To be included in these groups are: i) persons with a seasonal job; ii) persons engaged by an employment agency or business and hired out to a third party for carrying out a “work mission”; iii) persons with specific training contracts (including apprentices, trainees, research assistants, probationary period of a contract, etc.). National definitions broadly conform to this generic definition, but may vary depending on national circumstances. Country-specific details can be found in the PDF reported below.
b. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
c. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
d. Japan applies a maximum duration threshold of one year to classify jobs as temporary employment. As a result, a regular employee with a fixed-term contract lasting more than one year is not included in temporary employment.
e. Data for 2007 refer to 2005 for the United States and to 2004 for Mexico.
f. Weighted average.
g. The data cover only salaried employees who reported a written labour contract.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
a. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
b. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
c. Data cover dependent employment.
d. Data for 2007 refer to 2008 and data for 2015 refer to 2014.
e. Weighted average.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
← a. Total hours worked per year divided by the average number of people in employment. The data are intended for comparisons of trends over time; they are unsuitable for comparisons of the level of average annual hours of work for a given year, because of differences in their sources and method of calculation. Part-time and part-year workers are covered as well as full-time workers.
b. Provisional estimates.
c. Data for dependent employment refer to establishments in manufacturing with five or more employees.
d. Data for dependent employment refer to establishments with five or more regular employees.
e. OECD estimates on hours per worker are obtained by dividing total hours worked from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) by SPAO-based average employment from the FSO website, both series referring to National Accounts domestic concept.
Source: The series on annual hours actually worked per person in total employment presented in this table for all 35 OECD countries are consistent with the series retained for the calculation of productivity measures in the OECD Productivity Database (www.oecd.org/std/productivity-stats). However, there may be differences for some countries given that the main purpose of the latter database is to report data series on labour input (i.e. total hours worked) and also because the updating of databases occurs at different moments of the year.
Hours actually worked per person in employment are according to National Accounts concepts for 25 countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. OECD estimates of annual hours worked per person in dependent employment for Austria, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and the Slovak Republic are based on the European Labour Force Survey. The table includes labour-force-survey-based estimates for Costa Rica and the Russian Federation.
Country specific notes can be found at www.oecd.org/employment/outlook and data at the OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database.
Note: For country details related to data on unemployment by duration of job search, see PDF in source below. Data in brackets are based on small sample sizes.
a. Persons for whom no duration of unemployment was specified are excluded from the total used in the calculation.
b. The lower age limit is 16 instead of 15. For Iceland up to 2008, Italy after 2007, Norway up to 2005 and Sweden up to 2006.
c. Weighted average.
d. Data for 2000 refer to 2001.
Source: OECD Employment Database, www.oecd.org/employment/database and www.oecd.org/els/emp/lfsnotes_sources.pdf.
Note: 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, see: www.oecd.org/employment/outlook.
a. Average wages are converted in USD PPPs using 2016 USD PPPs for private consumption.
b. Average annual wages and unit labour costs are deflated by a price deflator for private final consumption expenditures in 2016 prices.
c. Real compensation per employee (instead of real wages) are considered for Chile, Iceland, Mexico and New Zealand.
d. The OECD average real wage growth is a weighted average computed based on dependent employment weights in 2016 for the countries shown.
Source: OECD estimates based on OECD Economic Outlook, Vol. 2017, No. 1, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/eco_outlook-v2017-1-en and OECD Annual National Accounts Prices and Purchasing Parities Database, http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SNA_TABLE4.
Note: Estimates of earnings used in the calculations refer to gross earnings of full-time wage and salary workers. However, this definition may slightly vary from one country to another. Further information on the national data sources and earnings concepts used in the caculations can be found at: www.oecd.org/employment/outlook.
a. Earnings dispersion is measured by the ratio of 9th to 1st deciles limits of earnings, 9th to 5th deciles and 5th to 1st deciles. Instead of 2005, data refer to 2004 for Italy, Poland and Switzerland; and to 2006 for Chile, Estonia, France, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. Instead of 2015, they refer to 2011 for Israel; to 2013 for Sweden; and to 2014 for Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
b. The incidence of low pay refers to the share of workers earning less than two-thirds of median earnings. See note a) for countries with different time periods.
c. The incidence of high pay refers to the share of workers earning more than one-and-a-half times median earnings. See note a) for countries with different time periods.
d. For the Czech Republic, there are breaks in series in 2010 and 2012. For the United Kingdom, there are breaks in series in 1997, 2004, 2006 and 2011. In each case, data were spliced from new-to-old series to remove the breaks in the series.
e. Unweighted average for above countries.
Source: OECD Earnings Distribution Database, www.oecd.org/employment/emp/employmentdatabase-earningsandwages.htm.
a. See note to Table O. The gender wage gap is unadjusted and is calculated as the difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men. Instead of 2005, data refer to 2004 for Italy, Poland and Switzerland; and to 2006 for Chile, Estonia, France, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. Instead of 2015, they refer to 2011 for Israel; to 2013 for Sweden; and to 2014 for Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
b. Age wage gaps are calculated as the difference between mean earnings of 25-54 year-olds and that of 15-24 year-olds (respectively 55‐64 year-olds) relative to mean earnings of 25-54 year-olds. Data refer to 55-year-olds and over for Hungary and Norway. Instead of 2005, data refer to 2004 for Switzerland, and to 2006 for Austria, Chile, Estonia, France, Iceland, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. Instead of 2015, they refer to 2011 for Israel, and to 2014 for Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
c. Earnings by skill (or education levels) refer to mean annual earnings of full-time full-year for 25-64 year-old employees. Earnings gaps by skill levels are calculated as the difference between mean earnings of medium-skilled employees and low- (respectively high-) skilled employees relative to mean earnings of medium-skilled employees.
d. The skill levels are based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED, 2011). Low (skills) corresponds to less than upper secondary ISCED Levels 0, 1, 2 (Less than primary, primary and lower secondary education). Medium (skills) corresponds to upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary ISCED Level 3 (including partial level completion), and ISCED Level 4 (Upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education). High (skills) corresponds to tertiary ISCED Levels 5, 6, 7 and 8 (short-cycle tertiary education, bachelors or equivalent level, masters or equivalent level, doctoral or equivalent level). Data refer to 2006 (instead of 2005) for Korea. They refer to 2010 (instead of 2014) for the Netherlands; to 2012 for Australia, France, Italy and Sweden; and to 2013 for Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey. For Korea, data are provided by national authorities.
e. Unweighted average for above countries.
Source: OECD Earnings Distribution Database, www.oecd.org/employment/emp/onlineoecdemploymentdatabase.htm#earndisp for earnings gaps by gender and age; and OECD (2016), Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/eag-2016-en for earnings gaps by skills or education levels.
Note: The data shown should not be treated as strictly comparable across countries or through time, since data at the level of individual countries in some cases deviate from standard definitions and methods and certain programmes or programme categories are not always included in the data for participants stocks. OECD average has variable country coverage. See www.oecd.org/els/emp/employment-outlook-statistical-annex.htm which provides a general introductory note about scope and comparability, tables for expenditure and participants in the main programme categories and subcategories, country-specific notes, and access to the online database.
Fiscal years for Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Source: For European Union countries and Norway, European Commission (2017), Labour Market Policy, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/labour-market-policy/database and detailed underlying data supplied to the OECD by the European Commission with certain Secretariat adjustments. For other countries: OECD Database on Labour Market Programmes, https://doi.org/10.1787/data-00312-en.