OECD: Unemployment will continue to rise in 2010

• Market labor recession yet to peak in some countries

The economic crisis has caused the number of unemployed persons in developed countries to rise by 15 million these past 20 months, and it will continue to grow in 2010, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned.

According to OECD specialists, "while the bulk of the rise in unemployment happened in mid-2009 in Spain, United States, Ireland, and Japan, it has yet to happen in countries such as Germany, France and Italy".

The OECD maintained the gloomy forecasts published in March, in which it said that the average unemployment in the Eurozone would reach 10% by the end of 2010, in spite of hopes for an economic recovery.

John Martin, head of the Human Resources Department of the OECD, said: "At the moment these estimates were drafted, there were an increasing number of signs indicating that the critical point of the crisis had been left behind, and that a recovery was coming. However, for the labor market, the outlook is not as good and the recovery will take a lot longer than it did for manufacturing".

In less than three years, namely between the end of 2007 and the end of 2010, the number of unemployed workers could grow by over 25 million people to 57 million, the OECD estimates.

According to the OECD, one of the main risks is that rising unemployment could lead to a social crisis, which would cause the degradation of the healthcare system, a dip in the living standard, an increase in delinquency and criminality and dampen growth potential.