Brazil’s unemployment rate closes out 2019 at 11.9%

The average unemployment rate in Brazil fell to 11.9 percent in 2019, below 2018’s 12.3 percent.

The figures com from the Continuous PNAD (National Household Sample Survey), published today (Jan. 31) by the country’s government statistics agency IBGE.

In the fourth quarter of the year, the unemployment rate stood at 11 percent. In the third quarter, the rate had been 11.8 percent.

The average of unemployed people closed out 2019 with 215 thousand people fewer than the year prior. The 1.7 percent slip brought the amount to 12.6 million. In the last quarter of 2019, the reduction in the comparison with the three months before stood at 7.1 percent, or 883 thousand fewer people. Compared to the same time span in 2018, the decline was 4.3 percent, or 520 thousand fewer people.

The employed population, in the yearly average, reached 93.4 million, two percent higher than in 2018. Comparing the last quarter of 2019 with the previous period, the increase was 0.8 percent—751 thousand people. Compared to the same quarter in 2018, the growth was to percent, or 1.8 million more people.

Autonomous workers went up 4.1 percent in the 2019 average compared to 2018, reaching 24.2 million. In the last quarter, the index held steady against the previous span and went up 3.3 percent, another 782 thousand workers.

People working in informal jobs rose four percent in the yearly average, which accounts for another 446 thousand people in 2019 compared to 2018. In the last quarter it remained stable compared to the same period in the year before, and grew 3.2 percent from the three last months of 2018, representing another 367 thousand people.

Under workers with formally registered jobs, the increase was reported at 1.1 percent in the annual average, amounting to 33.2 million workers, or an increase of 356 thousand people. In the last three months of the year, it went up 1.8 percent (593 thousand people) against the previous quarter and 2.2 percent (726 thousand people) against the same quarter in 2018.

Inflation

The largest inflation rate was registered for semi- and non-durable consumption goods. – Agência Brasil

The Producer Price Index (IPP), in turn—which gauges the fluctuation in the prices of industrialized goods upon leaving the factory—was reported at 5.19 percent in 2019. The value is below 2018’s 9.76 percent, and had been the highest in this time series, initiated in 2014.

In the accumulated rate for 2019, 17 of the 24 activities surveyed faced inflation. Of those pulling 2019’s rate most significantly are food (10.12%), oil refinement and alcohol products (20.25%), and extraction industries (13.59%).

Conversely, six activities reported deflation, chiefly chemical products (-6.38%), which were the main items curbing inflation last year.

Among industry’s major economic categories, the largest inflation rate was registered for semi- and non-durable consumption goods, which saw a price hike of 9.2 percent in the year’s accumulated rate.

Other economic categories that underwent inflation include durable consumer goods (4.43%), capital goods (5.98%), and intermediate goods (2.89%).