TORONTO ? Group of Eight leaders expressed concern in talks Friday over high unemployment in developed nations and called for a continued focus on economic recovery efforts, a Japanese official said.

"There was a shared understanding that the unemployment rate among developed nations remained very high and therefore, some leaders mentioned that on a short-term basis, we should continue to focus primarily on economic recovery," Japanese government spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters.

"That is a view, I think, shared by other leaders," he told a briefing on the first day of G8 talks in Huntsville, north of the Canadian city of Toronto.

The talks are being attended by key economies ? Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and United States.

The unemployment rate in the 31 leading industrialized economies totaled 8.7 percent of the work force in April, the same as in March, latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed on Monday.

In the United States, the May jobless rate stood at 9.7 percent.

The countries with the highest rates in May were Spain at 19.7 percent, Ireland at 13.2 percent, Portugal at 10.8 percent, Hungary at 10.4 percent and France at 10.1 percent.

There was an apparent split among G8 countries on how to sustain economic recovery while cutting the soaring deficits chalked up by countries pouring money into moves to stimulate growth after the worst recession in decades.

The United States has warned that a push for example by Germany, Britain and France to cut spending could derail recovery amid fears of a so-called "double dip" economic slump.

US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and the other leaders exchanged notes on the global economic situation in a "non-confrontational and cordial" manner, Kodama said.

They felt "fiscal consolidation measures are important but at the same time the timing of implementing consolidation measures" should be given due consideration, he said.

"We should not make any mistake in the timing of implementing fiscal consolidation measures in order not to damage the sustainable economic growth," Kodama said. "That is a shared understanding among the G8 leaders."

Kan and Merkel also met on the sidelines of the summit and discussed their strategies in boosting growth and reining in spending.

Merkel emphasized "sustainable fiscal consolidation," Kodama said.

She highlighted that her "government intended to introduce measures to hamper long term unemployment in such areas as research and development, education and infrastructure by combining fiscal consolidation with structural reforms."

The G8 meeting came ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 developing and developed nations that included Asian growth drivers China and India, at the weekend here.

The G20 meeting is expected to focus on global rebalancing efforts aimed at boosting domestic consumption in export-driven countries such as Germany, Japan and China and cutting ballooning budget deficits in the United States and several European nations.