10 Countries With Unemployment Rates Under 3%

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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10 Countries With Unemployment Rates Under 3%

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As the U.S. posted a September employment report which showed an addition of 156,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5%, America has been at what is called  a “full employment” level for over a year. Several well known countries have much better rates at below 3%. Most are in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or have a direct connection to China. Several border one another

In May, San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams said, “We’re basically at full employment. That’s very good news.” Presumably 0% unemployment would be full employment, but as people move from job to job, in and out of the workplace, experts have focused on 5% as the level at which an economy is healthy (Except, of course, for the dwindled number of people who don’t have work)

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Unemployment rate data by country is tricky, at least for comparison purposes. Several global organizations which include The World Bank and IMF collect and publish it. However, the numbers are no better than the ability of each nation considered to collect and publish accurate data on a timely basis. Reports from some countries can be two or three years old. In a few cases, older

The CIA World Factbook also collects and compares unemployment by country. From its current analysis, these are 10 well known nations with unemployment rates under 3%

CAMBODIA                                              0.30    2013 EST.
QATAR                                                       0.40    2015 EST.

THAILAND                                                1.00    2015 EST.
LAOS                                                           1.30    2012 EST.
MACAU                                                       1.90    2013 EST.
MONACO                                                    2.00    2012
SINGAPORE                                              2.00    2015 EST.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES                   2.40    2001 EST.
MALAYSIA                                                 2.70    2015 EST.
HONG KONG                                            2.90    2015 EST.

Oil rich Qatar and the UAE have the financial capacity to keep virtually their entire populations employed.  Parts of their borders are only a few miles apart

Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos have rapidly growing economies, which help job creation, but the wage workers are paid in these nations are among the lowest in the world. The three nations border one another

Macau and Hong Kong rely on their relationships with the mammoth Chinese economy for growth   The two within hailing distance along the Pearl River Delta.

Singapore has been among the world’s wealthiest and most advanced economies for years

Monaco has only 38,000 residents. The gambling business at the core of its economy makes it one of the highest GDP per capita countries in the world

Malaysia’s economy is partially state controlled and its GDP growth has been better than 6% per annum for most of the last decade

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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