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221 Unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force1. Selected countries
  1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Canada 7.6 6.8 7.2 7.7 7.6 7.2 6.8 6.3 6.0 6.1 8.3 8.0 7.5 7.2
United States 4.2 4.0 4.7 5.8 6.0 5.5 5.1 4.6 4.6 5.8 9.3 9.6 9.0 8.1
Japan 4.7 4.7 5.0 5.4 5.3 4.7 4.4 4.1 3.9 4.0 5.1 5.1 4.6 4.4
Australia 7.0 6.3 6.8 6.4 6.1 5.5 5.1 4.8 4.4 4.2 5.6 5.2 5.1 5.2
New Zealand 6.8 6.0 5.3 5.2 4.7 3.9 3.7 3.8 3.7 4.2 6.1 6.5 6.5 6.9
Belgium 8.6 6.9 6.7 7.3 8.1 7.8 8.5 8.2 7.5 7.0 7.9 8.3 7.2 7.6
Czech Republic .. .. .. 7.3 7.8 8.3 7.9 7.1 5.4 4.4 6.7 7.3 6.7 7.0
Denmark 4.8 4.4 4.3 4.6 5.6 5.4 4.8 3.9 3.8 3.4 6.0 7.4 7.6 7.5
Finland 10.2 9.7 9.1 9.1 9.0 8.9 8.4 7.7 6.8 6.4 8.2 8.4 7.8 7.7
France 10.7 9.3 8.5 8.8 9.4 9.7 9.5 9.2 8.3 7.8 9.5 9.8 9.6 10.3
Hungary .. .. .. 5.6 5.7 5.9 7.2 7.4 7.3 7.8 10.0 11.2 11.0 10.9
Ireland 5.6 4.3 3.9 4.3 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.6 6.3 11.9 13.7 14.7 14.7
Italy 11.3 10.4 9.4 9.0 8.6 8.0 7.7 6.8 6.1 6.8 7.8 8.4 8.4 10.7
Netherlands 3.2 2.8 2.5 2.7 3.8 4.6 4.7 3.9 3.2 2.8 3.7 4.5 4.5 5.3
Norway 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.9 4.5 4.4 4.6 3.4 2.5 2.5 3.1 3.5 3.3 3.2
Poland .. .. .. 19.8 19.2 18.8 17.7 13.9 9.6 7.2 8.2 9.7 9.7 10.1
Portugal 4.5 4.1 4.1 5.1 6.4 6.7 7.6 7.8 8.1 7.7 9.6 11.0 12.9 15.9
Spain 12.8 11.3 10.6 11.3 11.3 10.8 9.2 8.5 8.3 11.4 18.0 20.1 21.6 25.1
United Kingdom 5.9 5.4 5.0 5.1 5.0 4.6 4.8 5.4 5.3 5.6 7.6 7.8 8.0 7.9
Sweden 6.7 5.6 4.9 4.9 5.6 6,4 | 7.3 7.0 6.2 6.2 8.3 8.4 7.8 8.0
Germany 8.4 7.7 7.8 8.6 9.3 9.5 10.6 9.8 8.4 7.3 7.5 6.9 6.0 5.5
1  Standardised unemployment rates (OECD), as per cent of the civilian labour force.
Source: Labour Force Statistics, OECD.
More information:  http://www.oecd.org/ and  http://www.ssb.no/en/aku 

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