Unemployment down to 12.3% in Brazil

Brazil’s unemployment rate stood at 12.3 percent in the quarter ending in May—down 0.6 percentage points from the previous quarter’s 12.9 percent. Still, the country has 12.9 million jobless people.

The rate is down 3.4 percent from the same quarter last year, when 13.3 million people were estimated to be unemployed.

The figures can be found in the National Continuous Household Sample Survey (Pnad Contínua), released today (30) by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE).

The unemployment rate calculated by the IBGE is the percentage of unemployed people (looking for a job) within the total economically active population—the potential workforce on which the country’s production sector can rely, i.e. the occupied plus unemployed population.

The number of people with a job was estimated at 91.7 million from May to July, 2018, up one percent from the previous quarter (another 928 thousand). Compared with the same quarter in 2017, the increase was 1.1 percent.