Economy

Brazil unemployment sinks to 11.2% in January: IBGE

The percentage represents 12 million jobless

Vitor Abdala

Published on 18/03/2022 - 12:52

Rio de Janeiro

carteira de trabalho — © Agência Brasília

The unemployment rate in Brazil was reported to stand at 11.2 percent in the quarter ending in January this year. The result is the lowest for the period since 2016 (9.6%) and was released today (Mar. 18) by the country’s official statistics agency IBGE.

The rate observed in the quarter ending in January this year was below that observed in the same quarter of 2021, 14.5%, as well as that of the previous quarter ending in October 2021 (12.1%).

Brazil’s jobless totaled 12 million people, down 6.6 percent from the previous quarter (858 thousand fewer) and 18.3 percent below the quarter ended in January 2021 (2.7 million fewer).

The employed

Brazil’s employed population reached 95.4 million, up 1.6 percent from October (1.5 million more) and 9.4 percent against January 2021 (8.2 million more).

The employment level—the percentage of employed individuals in the population of working age—was estimated at 55.3 percent. The performance is 0.7 percentage points higher than in the previous quarter (54.6%) and 4.3 percentage points higher than in the same time span in 2021 (51.1%).