OECD LFS: monthly harmonized unemployment rate
Monthly harmonized unemployment rates, percent of the labour force, from the OECD Labour Force Statistics (OECD measure UNE_LF_M): 43 OECD members, partner economies and aggregates (euro area, EU, G7, OECD total), January 1955 to the present (2026-08 for Canada, the USA and Korea as of 2026-09-27), by sex (total/male/female). Method: the OECD harmonizes national labour-force surveys under common ILO definitions; every series is calendar-and-seasonally adjusted. Unit: percent. This is observed monthly data, not a forecast: the existing oecd_unemployment_rate_annual dataset (Economic Outlook) mixes observed history with two-year projections. The obs_status column flags provisional (P) and estimated (E) observations, mostly in the latest 1-2 months.
- Source
- OECD
- Rows
- 56,184
- Columns
- 6
- Source cadence
- Monthly
- Last refreshed
- Sep 27, 2026
- Theme
- labor
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| date | string | Reference month (the TIME_PERIOD column of the OECD SDMX-CSV response), stored as the first day of the month. |
| country_code | string | OECD REF_AREA code: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 for countries (e.g. 'USA'); the EA (euro area), EU, G7 and OECD aggregates are kept verbatim as published. |
| country_name | string | Economy name from the OECD CL_AREA codelist, e.g. 'United States'. |
| sex | string | Population by sex: 'total', 'male' or 'female' (OECD SEX codes _T/M/F), for the population aged 15 and over. |
| unemployment_rate_pct | float | Monthly harmonized unemployment rates, percent of the labour force, from the OECD Labour Force Statistics (OECD measure UNE_LF_M): 43 OECD members, partner economies and aggregates (euro area, EU, G7, OECD total), January 1955 to the present (2026-08 for Canada, the USA and Korea as of 2026-09-27), by sex (total/male/female). Method: the OECD harmonizes national labour-force surveys under common ILO definitions; every series is calendar-and-seasonally adjusted. Unit: percent. This is observed monthly data, not a forecast: the existing oecd_unemployment_rate_annual dataset (Economic Outlook) mixes observed history with two-year projections. The obs_status column flags provisional (P) and estimated (E) observations, mostly in the latest 1-2 months. (unit: percent of labour force) |
| obs_status | string | Observation status as reported by the OECD: A = actual value, E = estimated value, P = provisional value (usually the latest 1-2 months), B = break in series. |
First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.
| date | country_code | country_name | sex | unemployment_rate_pct | obs_status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978-02-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 8.457 | A |
| 1978-03-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 8.08 | A |
| 1978-04-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.865 | A |
| 1978-05-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.901 | A |
| 1978-06-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.736 | A |
| 1978-07-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.664 | A |
| 1978-08-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.981 | A |
| 1978-09-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.611 | A |
| 1978-10-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.46 | A |
| 1978-11-01 | AUS | Australia | female | 7.803 | A |
Profiled Sep 27, 2026 from snapshot 20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc
Measured- Completeness
- 100%
- Rows
- 56,184
- Columns
- 6
- Columns with gaps
- 0
| Column | Missing | Distinct | Range | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| datevarchar | 0% | 923 | — |
|
| country_codevarchar | 0% | 44 | — |
|
| country_namevarchar | 0% | 44 | — |
|
| sexvarchar | 0% | 3 | — |
|
| unemployment_rate_pctdouble | 0% | 9,327 | 0.9 → 32.3median 6.8 | 1,084 outside 1st–99th percentile |
| obs_statusvarchar | 0% | 4 | — |
|
- Current
20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc · sha256 dffd2584b3bc…
56,184 rows · first snapshot
Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).
curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/oecd/lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'import requests
ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/oecd/lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")
# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
print(row)API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/oecd/lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly
Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.
Where this data comes from and what was made from it. Other people's work shows as counts; only shared projects are named.
Cite this snapshot
Pinned to snapshot 20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.
OECD. (2026). OECD LFS: monthly harmonized unemployment rate [Data set, snapshot 20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc, sha256 dffd2584b3bc]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-09-27, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/oecd/lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly?snapshot=20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc
@misc{dz_oecd_lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly_dffd2584,
title = {{OECD LFS: monthly harmonized unemployment rate}},
author = {{OECD}},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Datazimuts},
howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/oecd/lfs_unemployment_rate_monthly?snapshot=20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc}},
note = {Snapshot 20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc, sha256 dffd2584b3bc7b1d21c968974156c60cdbeab3fe258e024d8f3743637528389c; accessed 2026-09-27}
}Embed a table or a chart
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<iframe src="https://datazimuts.com/embed/chart?dataset=oecd%2Flfs_unemployment_rate_monthly&lang=en&theme=auto&snapshot=20260927T211231Z-dffd2584b3bc&x=date&y=unemployment_rate_pct&agg=avg" title="OECD LFS: monthly harmonized unemployment rate" width="100%" height="380" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
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