The unemployment rate continued to decline in Brazil, to 6.1% over the period from September to November, the lowest in 12 years, according to official figures released on Friday. “The expansion of the labor market in Brazil is on track to record records in 2024”explains Adriana Beringuy, research coordinator at the IBGE Statistics Institute, quoted in a press release. This is the eighth consecutive drop in the unemployment rate of Latin America’s largest economy, which began to be calculated in rolling quarters by the IBGE in 2012. This rate had already been the lowest in this statistical series. over the August-October period, when it reached 6.2%.
Brazil had 6.8 million people looking for work in the September-November quarter, 1.4 million fewer than the same period last year. The unemployment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points in one year and the working population reached 103.9 million people, breaking a new record. The share of this active population working in the informal sector decreased slightly, to 38.7%, compared to 39.2% over the September-November 2023 period.
Growth of 0.9% in the third quarter
The continued decline in unemployment is good news for the government of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, faced with market distrust over its ability to respect a balanced budget. In recent weeks, the Brazilian real has depreciated sharply since the announcement of a package of public spending cuts deemed insufficient by business circles. “We still have enormous challenges ahead. But the Brazilian economy is strong and continues to grow.Lula said during a televised speech on Monday. Brazil grew by 0.9% in the third quarter and is expected to end the year with growth of more than 3% in its gross domestic product (GDP).
The average monthly income of Brazilian workers amounted to 3,285 reais (around 505 euros at the current exchange rate) over the September-November period, an increase of 3.4% year-on-year. An increase, however, significantly lower than inflation, which reached 4.87% over 12 months in November, above the objective targeted by the central bank and the government, a range between 1.5% and 4.5 %. On December 11, the Brazilian central bank increased its key rate by one point, to 12.25%, one of the highest levels in the world, due to inflationary surges linked, among other things, to the dynamism of the labor market.
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