The Portuguese industrial production price index registered a year-on-year rate of change of -5.2% in September (-5.5% in August), presenting a negative rate of change for the sixth consecutive month. The grouping of Energy continued to be decisive for the reduction of the total index, with rates of -25.6%, -20.0% and -15.6%, between July and September. Excluding the energy component, this index decreased by 1.8% in year on-year terms (-0.6% in August). The index for consumer goods recorded a year-on-year growth rate of 3.8% (5.6% in the previous month), extending the deceleration profile that began in December, after reaching in November the highest growth of the current series (16.2%).
The year-on-year rate of change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.6% in September, 0.1 percentage points lower than in the previous month. The year-on-year rate of change of energy products index stood at -4.1% (-6.5% in the previous month) and the index for unprocessed food products decelerated to 6.0% (growth of 6.4% in August).
On the external side, the implicit prices of exports and imports of goods, in August, registered year-on-year rates of change of -6.0% and -14.2%, respectively (-4.2% and -9.1%, July), mainly reflecting adjustments in the prices of petroleum and gas products, given that excluding fuels and lubricants there were decreases of 1.2% in exports and 4.1% in imports (-0.3% and -3.4%, respectively, in July).
The short-term indicators for economic activity from the perspective of production, available for August, point out, in year-on-year terms, to a slowdown in volume in construction and in nominal terms in services, and to declines in industry. From the perspective of expenditure, the economic activity indicator decreased in year-on-year terms in August, while the private consumption indicator and the Gross Fixed Capital Formation indicator decelerated. The economic climate indicator, which summarizes the balances of responses to questions relating to business surveys, decreased between July and September, after having stabilized in June.
In August, according to the provisional monthly Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate (16 to 74 years old), seasonally adjusted was 6.2%, 0.1 percentage points less than in the two previous months (6.4% in May and 6.0% August 2022). The labour underutilization rate (16 to 74 years old) stood at 11.5%, 0.1 percentage points below the value recorded in July (11.7% in May and 11.5% in the same period of the previous year). The employed population (16 to 74 years old), seasonally adjusted, increased by 1.3% in year-on-year terms and 0.1% compared with the previous month (year-on-year rate of change of 1.3% in July).
