Unemployment hits record 13.5 million people in Brazil

The unemployment rate in Brazil closed out the moving between December 2016 and February 2017 at 13.2%, up 1.3 percentage points from the previous quarter, reaching 13.5 million unemployed people. The latest figures hit record levels both for the unemployment rate and the size of the unemployed population throughout the time series, which began in 2012.

The figures are part of the National Household Sampling Survey (Continuous PNAD), released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Compared to the same moving quarter from the previous year, the unemployment rate was up 2.9 percentage points.

Previous quarter

Compared to the unemployment rate for the quarter ended last November, the unemployed population in December 2016-February 2017 was 11.7% bigger (which is equivalent to 1.4 million more unemployed people). As against the moving quarter ending in February 2016, it has grown 30.6% (which means 3.2 million more jobseekers).

PNAD figures also indicate the occupied population, 89.3 million, has shrunk both compared to the quarter ended in November 2016 (-1%) and to the quarter ended in February 2016 (-2%).

Translated by Mayra Borges