Unemployment at 6.2% in March
The unemployment rate rose from 5.9% in February to 6.2% in March, a relatively stable variation according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in its Monthly Employment Survey (PME) released Tuesday (Apr. 28). In March last year, the rate was 5%.
According to the manager of the IBGE National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), Maria Lúcia Vieira, the unemployment rate usually rises in the first few months of the year, a trend that starts to drop off in April. “From January to March, the unemployment rate tends to rise. This is the usual trend in the early months every year,” she said, adding that there were more people looking for a job last March than in the same period of 2014.
“This shows that people are leaving their jobs and not all of them are getting new ones,” the manager said. According to IBGE, the average usual real earnings of Brazilian workers in February 2015 was $730, down from the figure recorded in February 2014, $751.30.
The Monthly Employment Survey is conducted in Recife, where unemployment was 8.1%, Salvador (12%), Belo Horizonte (4.7%), Rio de Janeiro (4.8%), São Paulo (6%), and Porto Alegre (5.1%).
The number of unemployed people in the six regions increased by 280,000 people compared to March last year and remained stable compared to February this year. The employment rate remained stable at 52.1% compared to February this year, but fell 0.9 percentage points compared to March 2014.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Unemployment at 6.2% in March
