OECD: Jobless rate stuck at 7.5% in advanced nations

 The unemployment rate in advanced countries remained stuck at 7.5percent in March, the OECD said Wednesday, leaving the number of jobless stillone-third higher than at the start of the global economic crisis. The OECD, a policy forum for advanced democracies, said 11.3 million more peoplewere looking for work in its 34 member countries than in July 2008, before theglobal financial crisis began.The number of jobless has however dropped by 4 million from the peak in April2010 as the global economy has begun to recover.While the 18-nation eurozone is returning to tepid growth, there has been scantimprovement on the jobs front, with the unemployment rate holding steady for thefourth month running, at 11.8 percent, the Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development said.The jobless rate also held steady in March in the United states at 6.7 percent and inJapan at 3.6 percent.It climbed by 0.3 points to 5.8 percent in Australia and 0.4 points to 3.5 percent inSouth Korea.