The Chartbook on International Labor Comparisons focuses on the labor market situation in selected countries in the 1994-2004 period. The following are selected highlights.

• Ireland, the United States (U.S.) and Norway were the countries with the highest GDP per capita among 21 economies compared.
• The U.S. labor force was the largest among the 20 countries compared: 147.4 million.
• The U.S. labor force growth outpaced that of the EU-15 average, although some EU countries – Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal – had higher labor force growth than the U.S.

Labor Force Participation and Employment

• Across countries, women’s labor force participation varied more than men’s participation rates. Top five participation rates for women include: Canada (61.7%), Denmark (60.4%), Norway (59.8%), Sweden (59.7%) and U.S. (59.2%). Lowest three participation rates for women include: Italy (38.2%), Mexico (40.3%) and Spain (44.3%).
• New Zealand (63.7%), Canada (63.4%), the Netherlands (62.4%) and the U.S. (62.3%) had the highest percentages of the working-age population employed. In Italy and Spain, less than half of the working-age population was employed.
• Ireland (4.2%) and Spain (3.9%) had the highest growth rates in employment.
• In 2004, annual hours worked per employed person in European countries, except Spain, were lower than in the North American and Asian countries. Koreans worked the highest number of annual hours. Ireland and France experienced the largest reductions in annual hours worked per employed person.

Unemployment and Education

• Half of the European countries had higher unemployment rates than the U.S., while some of the smaller European countries (Ireland and Norway) had unemployment rates well below the U.S. rate (5.5% in 2004;  4.6% in May 2006).
• Persons unemployed one year or longer comprised 12.7% of the U.S. unemployed, one of the lowest percentages among the countries measured. About half of the unemployed were without work for at least a year in Germany and Italy.
• Unemployment rates were higher for persons without high school degrees than for persons with college or university degrees, except in Mexico and Korea. The unemployment rates of persons without high school degrees were at least three times that of persons with college or university degrees for men in Austria, Germany, the U.K, and the U.S. and for women in the U.S., Austria, and Australia.
• More than one-third of the adult population have tertiary (university) education in Canada, the U.S., Japan and Sweden. In Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Italy, more than half of the adult population have less than upper secondary education.

NOTE: The Chartbook of International Labor Comparisons can be found on the U.S. Labor Department’s Web site at www.dol.gov/asp/media/reports/chartbook/2006-06/.

^{**Due to the lack of suitable data, some of the countries do not appear on all measures. Selected countries are not representative of all of Europe and Asia; rather, they tend to be the more industralized economies in these regions.**}