February 2021:

• The employed population has increased by 0.4% from the previous month and decreased by 0.4% from three months before and by 1.4% from the same month of 2020.

• The unemployed population has decreased by 0.7% from January 2021 and by 6.1% from November 2020, having increased by 3.5% from February 2020.

• The unemployment rate (concept of the International Labour Organization, ILO) stood at 6.8%, 0.1 percentage points (pp) less than in the previous month, 0.4 pp less than in three months before and 0.3 pp more than in the same month of the previous year.

• The labour underutilisation rate was estimated at 13.8%, the same value as in the previous month, down 0.2 pp from three months before and up 1.1 pp from a year earlier.

March 2021:

• The employed population has increased by 0.3% from the previous month and by 0.1% from three months before, having decreased by 0.6% from the same month of 2020.

• The unemployed population decreased by 4.2% from February 2021 and by 5.2% from three months before (December 2020), having increased by 3.7% when compared to March 2020.

• The unemployment rate stood at 6.5%, down 0.3 pp from the previous month, down 0.4 pp from three months before and up 0.2 pp from the same month of 2020.

• The labour underutilisation rate was estimated at 13.3%, 0.5 pp less than in the previous month, 0.4 pp less than December 2020 and 0.6 pp more than a year earlier.

One year of COVID-19 pandemic in the Labour Market (analysis on page 5)

• Comparing the COVID-19 pandemic year with the one before, it is observed that the employed population has decreased by 2.1%, while the unemployed population, the labour underutilisation and the inactive population have increased (by 6.7%, 12.4% and 3.0%, respectively).

• The unemployment rate has increased by 0.6 pp and the labour underutilisation by 1.6 pp.