PARIS, June 19: The OECD said on Tuesday it foresaw a slowdown in unemployment declines next year in the world’s leading industrialised states as overall economic momentum cools, notably in the United States.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its 2007 Employment Outlook report, also predicted a weaker pace of expansion in employment in 2008 in its 30 members.

The report in addition focused on four non-OECD powerhouses, Brazil, Russia, India and China, where it said rapid economic growth had sparked striking employment gains.

From 2000-2005, according to the OECD, an average of 22 million net new jobs were created each year in the four countries, five times the net employment gains in the OECD.

The four now represent 45 per cent of world labour supply compared with less than 20 per cent for the OECD’s industrialised economies.

The report predicted that the OECD jobless rate, after falling from 5.9 per cent in 2006 to a projected 5.6 per cent this year, would come to 5.5 per cent in 2008.—AFP