Unemployment in Brazil drops to 7.8%, hitting lowest level since February 2015

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This number indicates a decrease of 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous quarter, from March to May 2023

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InfoMoney - According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the unemployment rate in Brazil was 7.8% in the three months leading up to August, marking the lowest index since February 2015, when it was 7.5%. The consensus among analysts polled by Refinitiv had projected a rate of 7.8% in August, aligning with expectations.This number indicates a decrease of 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous quarter, from March to May 2023. The number of unemployed people was 8.4 million in the quarter ending in August 2023, the smallest contingent since the moving quarter ended in June 2015, which was 8.5 million.Compared to the same period in 2022, the unemployment rate fell by 1.1 percentage points. This signifies a decrease of 5.9% compared to the quarter ending in May 2023, meaning there were 528,000 fewer unemployed people in the country. In the annual comparison, the drop is even greater: 13.2%, or 1.3 million fewer people.This decline in unemployment is directly influenced by the increase in the number of people working, explains Adriana Beringuy, Coordinator of Household Sample Surveys. The employed population reached 99.7 million, a growth of 1.3% (or 1.3 million people) compared to the quarter ending in May. Also, there was an increase of 0.6% (641,000 more people) compared to the same quarter in 2022. As a result, the employment level (percentage of employed people in the working-age population) was estimated at 57%. "This favorable scenario in terms of employment is what allows the reduction in the number of people looking for work," concludes the researcher.Three groupings of activities were responsible for the labor market performance in the moving quarter ended in August. The largest variation compared to the quarter ended in May was in Domestic Services, which increased by 2.9%, representing an addition of 164,000 employed people.Next was the group of Public Administration, Defense, Social Security, Education, Human Health, and Social Services, with an increase of 2.4% (or 422,000 more people), primarily in the areas of Health and Public Education. Closing the trio are the activities of Information, Communication, and Financial, Real Estate, Professional, and Administrative Activities, which recorded an expansion of 2.3% (275,000 more people) employed. "Overall, there was also a positive result because no other group recorded a statistical loss of workers. But these three groups, in particular, contributed to the process of worker absorption," says Beringuy.The population underemployed due to insufficient working hours increased by 3.9% (199,000 people) in the quarter and reached 5.3 million, a decrease of 17.3% (1.1 million) in the year. Meanwhile, the population outside the workforce was 66.8 million, a decrease of 0.5% compared to the previous quarter (347,000 fewer people) and an increase of 3.4% (2.2 million more) in the annual comparison.