US needs 10 mn jobs to employ its unemployed: OECD

LONDON: The United States needs to create as many as 10 million jobs to bring back national employment to the pre-crisis level, according to the OECD.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a grouping of developed and developing countries, including the US, Germany and France.

In its Employment Outlook 2010 report released today, the grouping noted its member nations need to create 17 million jobs to get employment levels back to the pre-crisis levels.

"Today's 'jobs gap' varies widely between countries: in the US nearly 10 million jobs need to be created...," it said.

The US, one of the worst hit by the financial meltdown in 2008-09, has seen millions of job losses as companies slashed workforce to cut down expenses.

The unemployment rate in the US slipped to 9.5 per cent last month from 9.7 per cent in May.

Going by the 31-member grouping, 47 million people are unemployed in the OECD region.

"But taking into account people who have given up looking for work or are working part-time but want to work full-time, the actual number of unemployed and under-employed in OECD countries could be about 80 million," the report added.

The jobless rate in the OECD region touched 8.6 per cent in May.

"Cutting unemployment and fiscal deficits at the same time is a daunting challenge but it needs to be tackled head on... High joblessness as the new normal cannot be accepted and has to be tackled by a comprehensive policy strategy," OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said.