Unemployment grew again in February, shows PNAD – 03/31/2023 – Market

The unemployment rate stood at 8.6% in the quarter ended in February, informed this Friday (31) the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). It is the lowest value for this period since 2015 when the indicator was at 7.5%.

According to the agency, the indicator grew in relation to the quarter ended in November (8.1%), the previous period of the comparable historical series of the Continuous Pnad (Continuous National Household Sample Survey).

According to the IBGE, unemployment growth in the quarter ended in November is seasonal and shows that the process of recovery in the labor market after the pandemic has come to an end.

“Returning unemployment growth in this period may signal a return to the seasonality characteristic of the labor market”, explains the coordinator of Work and Income at the IBGE, Adriana Beringuy.

“If we look retrospectively, in the historical series of the survey, all the moving quarters ended in February are marked by the expansion of unemployment, with the exception of 2022.” Last year, the unemployment rate closed the quarter ended in February at 11.22%.

According to the IBGE, Brazil had 9.2 million unemployed people in the quarter ended in February. The number represents a growth of 5.5%, or 483 thousand people, compared to the previous quarter.

Among the categories that most lost jobs are the employee without a formal contract in the public sector (-14.6%), the employee without a formal contract in the private sector (-2.6%) and the self-employed worker with CNPJ ( -4.8%).

The number of formal employees in the private sector remained stable after six consecutive quarters of significant growth.

Beringuy says that the loss of jobs in public administration is also natural at this time of year. “It is possible to observe, throughout the historical series, that at the beginning of each year, there are layoffs especially of workers without a formal contract hired by the public administration on a temporary basis.”

The evolution of employment statistics in recent quarters, however, is seen by analysts as indicators of a slowdown in economic activity. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the Brazilian GDP decreased by 0.2%.

The employed population had the second straight quarter of decline, after nine quarters of growth or stability. It was down 1.6%, or 1.6 million people, from the previous quarter.

The real average income of the worker was estimated at R$ 2,853, stable compared to the quarter ended in November. There was increase only in the sectors Accommodation and food (6%) and Domestic services (2.6%).