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\t\tUK unemployment surged at a faster pace than France and Germany.\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tThursday 16 April 2026 8:25 pm
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\tThursday 16 April 2026 8:26 pm\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\tUK unemployment surged at a faster pace than France and Germany.\t<\/p>\n
UK unemployment rose at a faster pace than any country in the G7, the OECD has said, with a sharp rise in joblessness particularly damaging for the youngest people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unemployment levels across the country rose<\/a> sharply by 0.8 percentage points over the year to 5.2 per cent between the last three months of 2024 and the end of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n It amounts to around 300,000 people going out of work over a 12-month period.\u00a0<\/p>\n The OECD<\/a>, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, found that this rise was steeper than any country across some of the most advanced economies.\u00a0<\/p>\n France\u2019s unemployment rate rose by 0.6 percentage points, according to the Paris-based think tank, while Germany\u2019s rate increased by 0.5 percentage points.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tUnemployment rate surge<\/p>\n The rise in youth unemployment in the UK only trailed France among G7<\/a> nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n The OECD said that the youth unemployment rate in France rose by 1.1 percentage points over the year to 19.7 per cent between 2024 and 2025, compared to a single percentage point difference for the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n Economists suggested there was a particularly large rise in the last three months of 2025 as youth unemployment hit 16.1 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its new report on the global market said the gap between the unemployment rate for younger and older workers had widened.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tUK economy set for second lowest growth in G7 \u2013 OECD<\/a><\/p>\n Half of the countries in the OECD, which collects data from various major global economies, experienced falling employment rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n The UK\u2019s employment rate, which covers the number of people in work out of those that are in the working-age population as a whole, inched up slightly.\u00a0<\/p>\n UK economy\u2019s woes<\/p>\n Unemployment figures comparing the UK to major countries follow a string of reports from both the OECD and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have uncovered the country\u2019s economic issues.<\/p>\n The IMF found that the UK\u2019 tax burden would rise at a faster rate than any country in the G7.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 4.5 percentage point difference, first noted in The Telegraph<\/a>, in the tax burden compared to when Labour took power in 2024 to the end of the forecast period in 2031 was around three times as large as France\u2019s.<\/p>\n