In the 4th quarter of 2023, the employed population (4,980.5 thousand people) decreased by 0.7% (35.0 thousand) from the previous quarter and increased by 1.6% (79.8 thousand) from one year before.

The share of the employed population who has teleworked, that is, who has worked from home using information and communication technologies was 17.8% (886.6 thousand people), 1.2 percentage points (pp) more than in the 3rd quarter of 2023.

The unemployed population, estimated at 354.6 thousand people, has increased by 8.7% (28.5 thousand) from the previous quarter and by 3.0% (10.4 thousand) from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate stood at 6.6%, 0.5 pp more than in the 3rd quarter of 2023 and the same value as in the 4th quarter of 2022.

The labour underutilisation covered 636.8 thousand people, having increased by 2.6% (15.9 thousand) from the previous quarter and by 0.4% (2.3 thousand) from a year before. The labour underutilisation rate (11.6%) has increased from the previous quarter (0.3 pp) and decreased from the same quarter of 2022 (0.2 pp).

The inactive population aged 16 and over (3,537.5 thousand people) has increased by 0.6% (19.5 thousand) from the previous quarter and decreased by 1.0% (35.1 thousand) in the year-on-year comparison.

In 2023, the annual average employed population stood at 4,978.5 thousand people and has increased by 2.0% (97.1 thousand) from the previous year. Similarly, the unemployed population, estimated at 346.6 thousand people, has also increased from 2022 (8.6%; 27.5 thousand).

The unemployment rate stood at 6.5% and the labour underutilisation rate at 11.7%, both up from 2022 (0.4 pp and 0.1 pp, respectively).

The young people (aged 16 to 24) unemployment rate stood at 20.3%, 1.2 pp more than in the previous year, while the proportion of long-term unemployment was 37.7%, down 7.4 pp from 2022.

In the context of Portugal 2030 Strategy, in 2023, the two education indicators estimated with Labour Force Survey data closest to their target were the proportion of the unemployed population aged 25 to 64 who have attended to education or training activities in the last four weeks (17.9%), which was at 2.1 pp from the minimum target of 20%, and the share of people aged 20 to 24 with at least an upper secondary qualification (87.3%), which was at 2.7 pp from the minimum target of 90%.