Unemployment rate drops to 9.8% in the quarter ended in May, says IBGE

The unemployment rate in Brazil stood at 9.8% in the quarter ended in May, the lowest rate for the period since 2015, when it was 8.3%, informed the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) this Thursday ( 30). Data are from Pnad Contínua (Continuous National Household Sample Survey).

The market expected the rate to remain at 10.24% in the period.

Compared to the previous quarter, from December 2021 to February 2022, the rate dropped 1.4 percentage points (pp). Compared to the same quarter last year, the drop was 4.9 pp

It is worth mentioning that there are still about 10.6 million people looking for an opportunity in the job market. This number, however, decreased 11.5% compared to the previous quarter, which represents 1.4 million fewer people. In the year, the fall was 30.2%, less 4.6 million unemployed people.

The number of employed people reached 97.5 million, the highest in the historical series started in 2012, and showed an increase of 2.4% compared to the previous quarter, which is equivalent to 2.3 million more people. In the annual comparison, the increase is 10.6%, 9.4 million more people employed in the year.

“It was an expressive growth and not isolated from the employed population”, says Adriana Beringuy, coordinator of surveys by sample of households at the IBGE. She points out that increases in employment have been taking place in various forms of worker insertion, both among informal workers and among those with a formal contract.

The movement is part of a process of recovering the losses of 2020, with a gradual recovery throughout 2021. “At the beginning of 2022, there was a certain stability of the employed population, which now resumes its expansion in various economic activities”.

“The contingent of workers with a portfolio has been showing a very interesting recovery, already recovering the pre-pandemic level. Especially at the end of 2020 and the first half of 2021, the recovery of occupation was mostly in informal work. From the second half of 2021 onwards, in addition to informality, a more effective contribution from formal employment also began to occur in the process of recovery of occupation”, he emphasizes.

The growth of the employed population was more relevant, according to the researcher, in the group Public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services, driven by the growth of the education segment.

Yield drops 7.2% in the year

The usual real income was R$ 2,613 in the quarter up to May, stable in relation to the previous quarter. In the annual comparison, however, the number represents a drop of 7.2%.

The annual drop is driven by formal occupation segments, according to the institute. But even among formalized workers there is a process of retraction, says Beringuy.

According to the researcher, this may be an effect of inflation itself, but also of the current income structure of workers, with a greater weight of workers with lower incomes.

Increase in signed portfolios

In the quarter, the number of employees with a formal contract in the private sector rose 2.8% in relation to the immediately previous period, which represents 981 thousand more people in this contingent, which now has 35.6 million people.

In the annual comparison, the advance was 12.1% (3.8 million more people).

already the informality rate was 40.1% of the employed population (or 39.1 million informal workers), against 40.2% in the previous quarter and 39.5% in the same quarter of 2021.

Source: CNN Brasil

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