Brazil: Unemployment falls to 7.1%—lowest quarterly rate since 2014

In the quarter ending in May, Brazil's unemployment rate stood at 7.1 percent, marking the lowest level for this period since 2014. This rate reflects a decrease from the previous quarter ending in February, which was at 7.8 percent. It is also lower compared to the same period in 2023, when it stood at 8.3 percent.

When compared to all quarters in the historical series of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), which began in 2012 by Brazil’s statistics agency IBGE, this indicator is the lowest since the three-month period ending in January 2015, when the rate stood at 6.9 percent.

The data, released on Friday (Jun. 28) by IBGE, also indicate that in May, the unemployed population—individuals aged 14 and over who were without work and actively seeking employment—stood at 7.8 million. This marks a decrease of 751,000 people compared to the quarter ending in February 2024 and a decline of 1.2 million compared to the quarter ending in May 2023.

PNAD measures all forms of employment, including those with or without formal contracts, temporary employment, and self-employment.

Employed

The employed population reached 101.3 million individuals, marking another record in IBGE's historical series. This figure is 1.1 million higher than in the quarter ending in February and 2.9 million higher than in the same period in 2023.

According to Adriana Beringuy, the coordinator of household surveys at IBGE, "the continuous growth of the employed population has been driven by the expansion of employees in both formal and informal sectors. This indicates that various economic activities have been experiencing an increase in their workforce."

To illustrate this assessment, the number of employees with a formal contract reached a record high of 38.3 million. "This achievement doesn't occur overnight, it reflects continuous expansion quarter after quarter," says Adriana Beringuy. Additionally, the number of employees without a formal contract also reached a record high of 13.7 million.