The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in January 2022 published its November 2021 inflation figures, showing the highest rate in 25 years.

In fact, inflation in the OECD area surged to 5.8% in the 12 months to November 2021, compared with 5.2% in October, and just 1.2% in November 2020, reaching the highest rate since May 1996.

The rise was particularly marked in the United States, where year-on-year inflation climbed from 6.2% in October to 6.8% in November, the highest rate since June 1982. In the euro area, inflation also increased strongly to 4.9% in November, from 4.1% in October and minus 0.3% a year earlier, although it remained lower than the OECD average.

Energy prices soared by 27.7% in the OECD area in the year to November, more than three percentage points higher than in October (24.3%) and the highest rate since June 1980.

Food prices inflation picked up strongly to 5.5% in November, compared with 4.6% in October.

Excluding food and energy, OECD year-on-year inflation rose more moderately, to 3.8%, compared with 3.5% in October.

Year-on-year inflation increased in November to 5.2% in Germany (from 4.5%), to 4.6% in the United Kingdom (from 3.8%), to 3.7% in Italy (from 3.0%), to 2.8% in France (from 2.6%) and to 0.6% in Japan (from 0.1%). Differences in overall inflation rates across G7 countries were largely related to differences in inflation rates excluding food and energy.

Eurostat’s flash estimate for the euro area in December points to annual inflation rising slightly to 5.0% with inflation excluding food and energy stable at 2.6%.

Among non-OECD G20 economies, year-on-year inflation rose markedly in China (to 2.3%, from 1.5% in October). It also increased in the Russian Federation (to 8.4%, from 8.1%), India (to 4.8%, from 4.5%) and Saudi Arabia (to 1.1%, from 0.8%). By contrast, inflation was stable in Brazil (at 10.7%) and Indonesia (at 1.7%), while it decreased slightly in Argentina (to 51.2%, from 52.1%).

Download the detailed OECD news release here (graphs and table included – PDF)