Unemployment remains well above its pre-crisis levels in many OECD countries despite a recovery in job growth. Modest declines in unemployment are projected over the rest of 2014 and in 2015. The persistence of high levels of unemployment has been translated into a rise in structural unemployment in some countries, which may not be automatically reversed by a pick-up in economic growth, as it has led to a loss in human capital and motivation to find work, especially among the long-term unemployed. For the OECD area as a whole, 16.3 million people – over one in three of the unemployed – had been out of work for 12 months or more in the first quarter of 2014, almost twice the number in 2007. Given these developments, promoting demand should remain a key policy objective where the recovery has been less robust, accompanied by reinforced measures to combat structural unemployment. Priority should be given to employment and training measures for the long-term unemployed who typically face significant barriers to finding work and are most likely to quit the labour force.