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The 4th quarter unemployment rate was 8.1% and the 2017 average stood at 8.9%
Employment statistics
The 4th quarter unemployment rate was 8.1% and the 2017 average stood at 8.9% - 4th Quarter 2017
07 February 2018

Summary

The unemployment rate for the 4th quarter of 2017 was 8.1%. This value is down 0.4 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous quarter and 2.4 p.p. from the same quarter of 2016.
The unemployed population, estimated at 422.0 thousand people, corresponded to a quarterly decrease of 4.9% (22.0 thousand fewer people), extending the quarterly decreases observed since the 2nd quarter of 2016. Comparing to the year-on-year value, there was a decrease of 22.3% (121.2 thousand fewer people), the largest since the 3rd quarter of 2013.
The employed population, estimated at 4,804.9 thousand people, recorded a practically null relative change (associated to a small increase of 1.9 thousand people) and a year-on-year growth of 3.5% (161.3 thousand more people), the largest since the 4th quarter of 2013.
In terms of the annual average, the unemployment rate was 8.9% in 2017, having recorded a decrease of 2.2 p.p. from 2016, and the young people (aged 15 to 24) unemployment rate stood at 23.9%, down 4.1 p.p. from the previous year.
The unemployed population, estimated at 462.8 thousand in 2017, decreased by 19.2% from the previous year (110.2 thousand fewer people), while the proportion of unemployed looking for a job for 12 months or longer (long-term unemployment) was 57.5%, having decreased by 4.6 p.p. from the former year. On the other hand, the employed population, estimated to be 4,756.6 thousand people, recorded an annual increase of 3.3% (151.4 thousand more people). In turn, the participation rate of the working age population stood at 59.0%, up 0.5 p.p. from 2016.
In these estimates, the population aged 15 and over was considered and the values are not seasonally adjusted.


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