The unemployment rate stood at 9.3% in the quarter ended in June, down 1.8 percentage points from the previous quarter. It is the lowest level for the period since 2015, when it had reached 8.4%. The number of the unemployed dropped 15.6% in the quarter, reaching 10.1 million persons. This represents 1.9 million fewer people looking for work in the country. The data are from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), released today (July 29) by the IBGE.

“The retraction of the unemployment rate in the second quarter follows the trend already seen in other years. In 2022, however, the sharpest drop was caused by the significant advance of the employed population in relation to the first quarter”, highlights the IBGE coordinator of Household Sample Surveys of the IBGE, Adriana Beringuy.

The employed population is the biggest one since the beginning of the time series of the survey in 2012. This number was estimated at 98.3 million, which represents a high of 3.1% over the previous quarter. It corresponds to 3.0 million more persons in the labor market, with 1.1 in the informal market.  It increased by 8.9 million workers in the comparison with the same quarter a year ago. With this growth, the employment population ratio, percentage of the employed ones in the working age population, was estimated at 56.8%, advancing 1.6 pp over the previous quarter.

The number of informal workers reached 39.3 million, also a record in the time series of the indicator, which began in 2015. In comparison with the previous quarter, there was a growth of 2.8%, which represents 1.1 million more persons. Employers and self-employed without a CNPJ, together with contributing family workers are part of the population of workers without a labor contract.

“The second quarter brought growth again in the number of self-employed workers without CNPJ, which had decreased in the first quarter. Besides, other major categories of informality, which are workers without a labor contract in the private sector and domestic workers without a contract, kept rising”, she analyzes. The informality rate was 40.0% in the quarter ended in June.

The number of self-employed workers, formal and informal, (25.7 million persons) was the highest one for a quarter ended in June since the beginning of the Continuous PNAD time series, in 2012. There was growth of 1.7% (431 thousand persons) over the same quarter a year ago and of 4.3% (1.1 million) in relation to the same period last year.

For workers without a labor contract in the private sector, the increase was 6.8% (or 827 thousand more persons) over the last quarter. As a result, the number was also the highest in the series, estimated at 13.0 million persons. The number of domestic workers without a labor contract grew 4.3%, in the period, corresponding to 180 thousand persons. With this high, this category gathered 4.4 million workers.

The growth in the number of informal workers is related to some activities of the services sector, which was very much affected by social isolation measures during the pandemic. “We can observe that an important part of services, as personal services rendered to families, have a big share of informal workers and it influences this employment reaction. The same has occurred in construction, a sector with a significant share of informal workers. So, informality plays an important role in the employment growth”, she explains.

In the case of formal labor market, the major growth in absolute terms was of the employed persons with a labor contract in the private sector. This category increased 2.6% in the quarter, an increase of 908 thousand persons. In the year, the increase was of 3.7 million workers (11.5%). On the other hand, the number of employers with CNPJ stood stable over the last quarter and increased 12.7% in the annual comparison. Of the 4.2 million employers, 3.4 million (81%) are formal.

Employment grows in seven activities

In relation to the employment increase, the researcher points out to widespread expansion among the several economic activities. “Among them, the highlights were trade (3.4%), industry (2.6%) and public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services (4.5%). In this last group of activity, the expansion of 739 thousand persons was influenced by basic education, especially primary education. Besides the seasonal behavior of expansion in this groups, the increase of face-to-face activities led to the entrance of professionals in the educational segment”, she analyzes.

In trade, the increase was of 617 thousand persons over the previous quarter and, in industry, 332 thousand. Growth was also seen in the construction sectors (3.8%, or 274 thousand more persons), information, communication and financial, real estate, professional and administrative activities (3.0%, or 336 thousand more persons), other services (3.2%, or 158 million more persons and domestic services (4.0%, or 227 thousand more persons).

With the employment expansion, the labor force (employed and unemployed workers) reached 108.3 million persons, the biggest number in the time series of the survey. The high was of 1.0% (1.1 million persons) compared to the last quarter and of 4.0% (4.1 million persons) compared to the same period last year.

Average earnings stand stable and wage bill grows in Q2

The average usual real earnings reached R$ 2,652, standing stable in the comparison with the first quarter. In the year, there was decrease of 5.1%. The wage bill reached R$255.7 billion, an increase of 4.4% over the previous quarter and of 4.8% in relation to the same period last year.

Ms. Beringuy explains that the results reflect the employment expansion in the quarter. Although there is no increase in the average earnings of workers, there was growth in the wage bill because the number of persons working is quite high”, she claims.

More about the survey

The Continuous PNAD is the main instrument to monitor workforce in Brazil. The survey sample per quarter corresponds to 211 thousand households surveyed in Brazil. Nearly two thousand interviewers work in the survey in 26 states and in the Federal District, integrated to the data collection network of more than 500 IBGE branches.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IBGE implemented data collection by telephone on March 17, 2020. In July 2021, face-to-face data collection was resumed.  The id of the interviewers can be confirmed at the Answering the IBGE website or through the Call Center (0800 7218181) by checking their ID numbers, which can be requested by the informants. See PNAD data on Sidra database.