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Economic activity recovers significantly but still below the levels observed in the same period of 2019
Monthly Economic Survey
Economic activity recovers significantly but still below the levels observed in the same period of 2019 - April 2021
19 May 2021

Summary

The information available for March and April, reveals positive year-on-year rates of change, more intense in the last month, after negative rates since the beginning of the pandemic. This evolution is largely due to a base effect, since, for the first time, after one year, the comparison focuses on months already strongly affected by the pandemic (March and April 2020). However, most of the indicators are still below the levels observed in the same period of 2019. The exceptions are two indicators related to investment, sales of cement and machinery imports.
The economic activity indicator registered a sharp increase in March, after decreasing in the first two months of the year. The quantitative indicator of private consumption presented a less intense reduction in March, registering the highest value since March 2020. The investment indicator also presented a very sharp increase in March, after the negative rates of change registered in the first two months of the year. In April, the economic climate indicator presented an strong recovery.
The unemployment rate stood at 7.1% in the first quarter, 0.2 percentage points below the rate observed in the previous quarter but 0.3 percentage points above the rate recorded in the same period of 2020. The labour underutilization rate was 14.1%. The total employment presented a year-on-year decrease of 1.3%, while the volume of hours actually worked has decreased by 7.9% in year-on-year terms.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) year-on-year rate of change was 0.6% in April 2021 (0.5% in March). The manufacturing price index recorded in April a year-on-year rate of change of 3.0% (-0.6% in the previous month), the highest growth since November 2018.


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