Unemployment goes to 9.3%, the bottom stage since 2015, and reaches 10.1 million folks

The unemployment rate in the quarter from April to June was 9.3%, according to data from the Pnad Contínua (Continuous National Household Sample Survey) released today by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). It is the lowest level for the period since 2015.

The unemployed population is estimated at 10.1 million people, which represents 1.9 million people less than in the previous period. The employed population is 98.3 million, up 3.1% from the previous quarter. It is the largest contingent since the beginning of the survey’s historical series, which began in 2012.

For the coordinator of IBGE household sample surveys, Adriana Beringuy, the movement is similar to that of other years. “The retraction of the unemployment rate in the second quarter follows a movement already observed in other years. In 2022, however, the sharpest drop in this rate was caused by the significant increase in the employed population compared to the first quarter,” she said in a note.

Last month, the unemployment rate was estimated at 9.8% in the quarter ended in May, also the lowest rate for the period since 2015.

The number of informal workers grows

The number of people in the informal market stood at 39.3 million, the highest in the historical series, which began in 2016. In comparison with the previous quarter, there was an increase of 2.8%.

This group includes workers without a formal contract, self-employed without CNPJ, in addition to auxiliary family workers.

“In this second quarter, there was a resumption of growth in the number of self-employed workers without CNPJ, which had fallen in the first quarter. In addition, other main categories of informality, which are employees without a formal contract in the private sector and domestic workers without a formal contract, continued to increase”, analyzed Adriana Beringuy, from IBGE.

For her, the advancement of this type of work is related to the end of isolation measures to contain covid-19. “We can see that an important part of the services, such as personal services provided to families, has a large participation of informal workers and is influencing this reaction of the occupation. This has also occurred in construction, a sector with a significant portion of informal workers,” she said.

Average income drops 5.1% in the year

The average income in the period was BRL 2,652, stable compared to the previous quarter, but falling 5.1% since the beginning of 2022.

Beringuy explains that the results reflect the expansion of occupancy in the quarter. “Although there is no increase in the average income of workers, there was an increase in the mass of income because the number of people working is quite high”, he pointed out.

Difference between Pnad and Caged

Yesterday, the Ministry of Labor released data from the Caged (General Register of Employed and Unemployed), which showed that the country created 277,000 new jobs in June. The survey, however, covers only contracts governed by the CLT. It is the companies themselves that fill in the information in their own system.

The IBGE’s Pnad is broader, including the informal labor market. The survey is done with interviewers, who ask a sample of the population about their work situation.

Methodology

Pnad Contínua is the main instrument for monitoring the workforce in the country. The survey sample per quarter in Brazil corresponds to 211 thousand households surveyed. About two thousand interviewers work on the survey, in 26 states and the Federal District.

Source: Uol