The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its unemployment report on Thursday. The OECD said that the number of unemployed declined to 42 million from 45 million in 2014, remaining well above its pre-crisis level.

According to the OECD's report, long-term unemployment remains "unacceptably high", especially in Europe. More than one in three jobseekers in the 34 OECD countries have been out of work for 12 months or more, the OECD said.

"Time is running out to prevent the scars of the crisis becoming permanent, with millions of workers trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder. If that happens, the long-run legacy of the crisis would be to ratchet inequality up yet another notch from levels that were already far too high," OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said.

The OECD projects unemployment in its 34 OECD countries to fall to 6.6% in the last quarter of 2016 from 7.1% at the end of 2014.

Unemployment rate in both Greece and Spain is expected to remain above 20%.