Brazil's unemployment rate falls to 7.1%

The unemployment rate stood at 7.1 per cent in the quarter ended May, reaching its lowest level since 2014. The rate was down from the previous rolling quarter ended in February, when it stood at 7.8 per cent. It is also below the level recorded for the same period in 2023, when it was 8.3 per cent.

Compared to all quarters in the historical series of the continuous National Sample Survey of Households (PNAD), which began in 2012, the rate is the lowest since the three-month period ending January 2015. At that time, the rate was 6.9 per cent. The lowest rate was 6.6 per cent at the end of 2014. This is reported by Toda Palavra, a partner of TV BRICS.

The data was released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The study said that in May, the number of unemployed – people aged 14 and older who are unemployed and looking for work – was 7.8 million. That's 751,000 fewer than in the quarter ending February 2024 and 1.2 million fewer than in the quarter ending May 2023.

The employed population totalled 101.3 million, a record for the IBGE historical series. The figure is 1.1 million more than the quarter ending in February and 2.9 million more than the same period in 2023.

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