Unemployment in wealthy countries may have peaked — but there are still 17 million more people out of work than at the start of the global financial crisis, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said Wednesday.

Cameron Hinojosa talks with his sister Renee Rodriguez before handing in his resume at a retail store in California in 2009. The OECD warned Wednesday that unemployment threatens an entire generation of workers. (Gary Kazanjian/Associated Press)

The unemployed are "the human cost of the crisis," OECD chief Angel Gurria said, urging governments not to neglect them as they seek to repair wrecked balance sheets.

The longer a person is unemployed, the harder it typically becomes for them to gain paid employment.

"This threatens to mark whole generations," Gurria said in a news conference to mark the publication of the OECD report Employment Outlook 2010.

There are 47 million unemployed in the OECD's 31 member countries — the world's most developed economies — the report says.

That's a rate of 8.6 per cent, according to May 2010 figures, and compares with 5.8 per cent in 2007.

The United States accounts for more than half of the jobs shed since 2007 — 10 million.

'This threatens to mark whole generations.'— Angel Gurria, head of OECD

Ireland needs to create one job for every five that exist today, or about 320,000 positions, to reach pre-crisis levels, and Spain has lost 2.5 million jobs.

Gurria said deficit cuts should be done very carefully and that governments will "have to do a fine type of surgery instead of using an axe."

He said governments "could have done better" in designing stimulus measures to prevent job losses.

OECD projections show that the unemployment rate could remain above eight per cent by the end of 2011.

The Paris-based watchdog advised governments to target their employment policies toward the most disadvantaged groups and those with few or no skills, who risk being excluded from the labour market.

It recommends tax breaks and hiring subsidies for people out of work for more than a year.

Including those who have given up looking for work or who are underemployed, the number of people looking for work could be as high as 80 million, the report says.