Korea’s unemployment rate was the lowest among the 34 leading industrialized economies for the sixth consecutive month in January, a report showed on Thursday.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report said Korea’s jobless rate moved between the 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent range from August to January.

In January, the jobless rate of Asia’s fourth-largest economy reached 3.2 percent, or 5 percentage points lower than the OECD’s average.

The latest report showed double-digit unemployment rates in Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. Spain’s jobless rate stood at a staggering 23.3 percent, up 0.4 percentage point from December.

Besides Korea, Austria’s unemployment rate was the lowest at 4 percent in the first month of this year.

Jobless numbers for the Group of Seven most industrially advanced nations ― the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada ― stood at an average of 7.5 percent in January. The jobless rate of the European Union reached 10.1 percent in the cited month, the OECD report showed. 

(Yonhap News)