Brazil unemployment down to 9.3% in second quarter
Brazil’s unemployment rate reached 9.3 percent in the quarter ending in June, down 1.8 percentage points from the previous quarter. This is the lowest level for the period since 2015’s 8.4 percent, as per data from the country’s official statistics agency IBGE.
The total of jobless people shrank 15.6 percent in the quarter and stood at 10.1 million, 1.9 million fewer than the previous three-month span. The figures can be found in the Continuous PNAD (National Household Sample Survey) released by the IBGE today (Jul 29).
The retraction in joblessness in the second quarter is not unlike the one observed in previous years, said IBGE Research Coordinator Adriana Beringuy. “In 2022, however, the sharpest drop in this rate was brought about by the significant increase in the employed population compared to the first quarter,” she noted.
Employed population
The data reveal that Brazil’s employed population is the largest since the current time series began, back in 2012. The contingent was estimated at 98.3 million, up 3.1 percent from the previous quarter.
This represents 3 million more workers in the labor market. Of these, 1.1 million have an informal job. “Against the same time span last year, the amount is up by 8.9 million workers. The growth brings the employment rate—i. e. the percentage of employed people in the population of working age—to an estimated 56.8 percent, up 1.6 percentage points from the quarter before,” the IBGE stated.
The number of informal workers was calculated at 39.3 million, also the highest in the time series for the indicator, which began in 2016. Compared to the preceding three-month span, the figure means a 2.8 percent expansion, or 1.1 million people.
The informality rate stood at 40 percent in the quarter ending in June. Among other factors, Beringuy pointed out, the numbers in the second quarter were influenced by the rebound in the amount of self-employed workers not registered as a firm, on the wane in the first quarter.
“Furthermore, other major categories under informality—employees with no formal employment contract in the private sector and domestic workers with no formal registration—continued to increase,” she said.
