Continuous PNAD
Unemployment falls to 12%, but underemployed population is the biggest since 2012
July 31, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: July 31, 2019 01h48 PM
The unemployment rate in the country fell by 12.7%, in Q1 2019, to 12% in the quarter April-June, according to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), released today by the IBGE.
The second quarter had two record figures in the time series initiated in 2012. The underemployed population, who is available to work longer hours, amounted to 7.4 million persons and the number of self-employed workers increased 1.6% and reached 24.1 million.
There were a total 294 thousand positions with a formal contract, which means an increase of 0.9% against the previous quarter, a total 33.2 million workers with a formal contract. On the other hand, the population without a formal contract reached 11.5 million workers, an increase of 3.4% in that same comparison.
The IBGE Assistant Director of Surveys, Cimar Azeredo, highlights some positive points of the indicators presented. “The number of persons with a formal contract has never been so high as in the end of the quarter ended June 2014. That is a significant change.” He also highlights the increase of the employed population, the biggest in the annual comparison, with 2.4 million persons more.
The positive results, according to Cimar, they represent “growth hiccups”, that is, they point to slight recovery after an unfavorable scenario for the labor market. “Informality is still overly present and there is a significant deficit of job posts with a formal contract."
In the second quarter of the year, underutilization reached 28.4 million persons, in a group that gathers the unemployed, the underemployed (available to work longer hours), the discouraged (who have given up searching for work) and a group that is not able to look for a job due to several reasons. Among those, 12.8 million were looking for a job and 4.9 million were discouraged.
