Continuous PNAD
Unemployment increases to 12.7% with 13.4 job seekers
April 30, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: April 30, 2019 02h01 PM
More than 1.2 million persons joined he unemployed population in the first quarter of the year, as compared to the last quarter of 2018. As a result, the total job seekers in the country reached 13.4 million. The unemployment rate increased to 12.7%, but still below the 13.1% result of the first quarter last year.
These are the results of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), released today by the IBGE. The biggest falls in the number of the employed were in Public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services, with 332 thousand fewer people, followed by Construction, with a loss of 228 thousand people. The other sectors were stable.
"There is a seasonal factor in the public administration, represented mainly by municipalities, which hire temporary workers and dismiss them at the beginning of the year," explains IBGE's Labor and Income Coordinator, Cimar Azeredo.
The contingent of 32.9 million employees in the private sector with a formal contract was stable compared to the last quarter of 2018. The category of employees in this sector without a formal contract registered a loss of 365 thousand jobs, falling to 11.1 million people. There was increase, though, in the average earnings of workers without a formal contract.
"The market has thrown 1.2 million people into unemployment and formal contract has not recovered. Workers without a formal contract who had been hired as temporary sales agents for events, such as Black Friday and Christmas, or who worked in the elections, left their jobs at the beginning of the year. As these jobs pay less, the industry's average earnings increased without meaning a real gain in workers' earnings," analyzes Cimar Azeredo.
Underutilized and discouraged population is the biggest since 2012
The labor underutilization rate was 25%, the highest since 2012. This represents a group of 28.3 million persons gathering the unemployed, the time-related underemployed and those who are available to work, but are unable to seek employment for various reasons.
There are more than 1.5 million persons that are now underutilized, a 5.6% increase over the quarter ended in December 2018. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, when there were 27.5 million underutilized workers, this estimate rose 3%, 819 thousand more persons in this situation.
Underutilization was driven by unemployment and the potential labor force. This, in turn, grew due to the influx of 180,000 people who gave up looking for work, reaching 4.8 million discouraged workers in the first quarter of the year, the largest contingent of the time series.
