Rio de Janeiro – The unemployment rate in Brazil increased to 7.4% in the months of December, January and February, said this Thursday (9th) the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The rate shows that joblessness increased over the previous Q (September, October and November), when it was at 6.5%. According to the National Home Sample Survey (Pnad Contínua, in the Portuguese acronym), the unemployment rate of the Q ending in February is also above the index in the same Q of last year (6.8%) and it’s the highest since the period comprising March, April and May of 2013 (7.6%).
In the period, IBGE recorded 7.4 million of unemployed people, an increase of almost a 1 million people (14.7%) in comparison to the total of jobless people between September and November of 2014, which stood at 6.5 million workers.
On the other hand, the research reveals that the average income of Brazilians went up 1.1%, going from R$ 1,793 (US$ 588.52) in the Q ending in November to R$ 1,817 (US$ 596.40) in the next three months. The amount went up 0.7% in comparison to the same period of last year, adjusted to the inflation.
The real income mass usually received for all of the works went to R$ 162 billion (US$ 53.17 billion), which means an increase of 2.2% over the same Q of last year. In the comparison with the Q that ended in November, the increase stood at 0.7%.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
