Unemployment rate drops to 11.8% in December

published: Jan 31, 2018 05:06 PM, last modified: Jan 31, 2018 07:15 PM

Number of unemployed still high, but percentage of people without a job continues to fall

The unemployment rate in Brazil fell again in the quarter ended in December. It ended the year at 11.8%, down significantly from the 13.7% verified for the January-March quarter.The numbers were released on Wednesday (31 January) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Although the number of unemployed people is still high, there are important signs of improvement in the last year: in the previous quarter, the employed population grew by 0.9% (811,000 people) between October and December. The 'mass of earnings' (i.e. the sum of all real income earned by workers) also increased, by a significant R$ 6.6 billion, in relation to the same quarter of 2016.

For the Work and Income coordinator at the IBGE, Cimar Azeredo, the numbers still need to be viewed with caution, but it is already possible to discern a slowdown of unemployment. "Unemployment is still higher than last year, but that growth has visibly slowed," he said.