A total of 48.5mn people were unemployed in advanced countries in April, an increase of 200,000 from the March level, the OECD said yesterday.
This worked out at a steady unemployment rate of 8%, but in the eurozone the rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to a record 12.2%.
In the US, by contrast, the rate fell by 0.1 points to 7.5%, the harmonised OECD data showed.
The latest figures showed that Germany, with the biggest economy in Europe and in the eurozone, has reduced its rate to below the level before the financial crisis five years ago.
As the world waits for convincing signs of strong economic recovery and worries that Europe is overhung by clouds of recession, the second-biggest eurozone economy, France, and third-biggest Italy, are now being hit by record unemployment rates.
Unemployment is mainly a lagging indicator, reflecting the effects of policies and events in the past.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that since July 2008, just before the full force of the financial crisis and then eurozone debt crisis hit home, the number of unemployed had risen by 13.7mn people.
The OECD, based in Paris, is a forum for analysis and policymaking for 34 advanced economies. The latest data appeared in its monthly review of unemployment among its members.
The rate of unemployment in the eurozone is now 1.3 percentage points higher than a previous peak reached in the mid 1990s, the OECD said.
“Trends in unemployment rate across OECD countries have diverged significantly since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis,” the OECD said.
“In May 2013, unemployment rates were significantly below the peaks reached in the second half of 2009 in Canada and the US.”
In Canada, the rate was 1.6 points below the previous high level and in the US 2.4 points lower.
In April, the rate in Japan, steady at 4.1%, was close to the pre-crisis level.
But in Germany, the rate, steady at 5.4%, had fallen to 2.0 points below the level prevailing before the crisis.
By contrast, the unemployment rate reached record high levels in several European countries, for example 11.0% in France, 12.0% in Italy, 17.8% in Portugal, 26.8% in Spain and 27.0% in Greece.
The rate across the European Union as a whole was 11.0%.
Among countries with low rates was South Korea, where it fell by 0.1 points in April to 3.1%.
Other notably low rates were in Australia 5.5% down from 5.6% in March, Austria steady at 4.9%, Iceland steady at 5.6%, and the Netherlands with 6.5% up from 6.4%.
In Poland, with the biggest OECD economy in the central Europe region, the rate was 10.8%, up from 10.7%.
Meanwhile, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn yesterday said eurozone’s battered economies were slowly emerging from a crippling recession with growth expected to return by the second half of 2013.
Rehn was in The Hague, where he met Liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte as well as Finance Minister and Eurogroup finance chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to discuss the Commission’s budget reform recommendations for the Netherlands.
“The euro area’s economies are slowly emerging from the recession,” an upbeat Rehn told journalists at a press conference.
“Economic activities are set to stabilise by the first half of the year and in the second half, growth should return.”
The Netherlands, in the grip of an economic chill over the last two years, should also see positive growth of around 0.9% return by 2014, Rehn said.
But the EU finance chief remained adamant the Commission believed that the Netherlands could reach a deficit target of 2.8%, below the EU’s set target of 3.0% (of output) in 2014.
Rehn said however that the Commission could give eurozone countries more time to get their budgets balanced — but only under specific circumstances.
These included needing proof that the country in question did all it could to fix its budget and an unexpected downturn in the economic situation.
“It is however premature to talk of this (measure), we will see what happens in the next half year,” Rehn said.
The Netherlands’ public deficit came in at 4.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, the fourth year in a row it has breached the EU’s 3% ceiling.