In the quarter ended July, unemployment fell to 5.6%, the lowest rate since 2012

The unemployment rate for the three-month period ended July 2025 fell to 5.6%. This is the lowest rate in the time series for this indicator, which began in 2012. Data comes from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), released today (16) by the IBGE.

In the quarter, the unemployed population fell to 6.118 million, the lowest figure since the last quarter of 2013 (6.100 million). The employed population, or the total number of workers in the country, hit a new record, 102.4 million. The employment rate (the percentage of employed persons in the working-age population) kept a record high: 58.8%. The number of workers with a formal contract also hit a record: 39.1 million.

For William Kratochwill, IBGE analyst, "these figures support the positive status of the labor market, with increase of employment and a reduction in labor underutilization, in other words, a more active labor market."

The population out of the workforce stood at 65.6 million, showing stability in both comparisons. Also, the discouraged population fell to 2.7 million, a decline of 11.0% (332 thousand persons) in the quarter and a reduction of 15.0% (475 thousand persons) for the year. The percentage of discouraged workers fell 0.3 percentage points in the quarter and 0.4 percentage points in the year, reaching 2.4%.

For the IBGE analyst, "these indicators show that people who left the unemployed population are not leaving the workforce or becoming discouraged, they are entering the job market, as corroborated by the record employment rate."

Agriculture, Information and Public administration lead quarterly increases

The increase in employment from the previous quarter was driven by three of the ten groups of activity surveyed by Continuous PNAD: Agriculture, livestock, forestry, fishing and aquaculture (2.7%, or 206 thousand persons), Information, Communication, and Financial, Real Estate, Professional, and Administrative Activities (2.0%, or 260 thousand persons) and Public Administration, Defense, Social Security, Education, Human Health, and Social Services (2.8%, or 522 thousand persons).

Against the same moving quarter in 2024, employment increased in five groups: General Industry (4.6%, or 580 thousand persons), Trade, repair of motor vehicles and of motorcycles (2.1%, or 398 thousand persons), Transportation, storage and mailing (6.5%, or 360 thousand persons), Information, Communication and Financial, Real Estate, Professional and Administrative Activities (3.8%, or 480 thousand persons) and Public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services (3.7%, or 677 thousand persons).

Informality rate drops, but number of informal workers increases

In the quarter ended July, informality rate reached 37.8%,  being slightly below that in the previous quarter (38.0%) and also lower than in the same period a year ago (38.7%). However, the total number of workers without formal employment contract (38.8 million) increased slightly from the previous quarter (38.5 million) and the same period in 2025 (38.7 million). William explains that "the growth in the informal segment of the employed population was marginal, not statistically relevant, however, the formal segment continued to grow, thus promoting a significant reduction in this indicator."

The number of workers with a formal contract in the private sector hit a record (39.1 million), remaining stable in the quarter and growing 3.5% (1.3 million more persons) over the year. The number of self-employed workers (25.9 million) also hit a record, growing 1.9% (492 thousand) in the quarter and 4.2% (1 million) over the year. The number of private sector workers without formal employment contracts (13.5 million) remained stable in both comparisons.

Workers' wagebill hits record figure: R$352.3 billion

Due to increases in the number of workers and their average earnings, the real average wagebill hit a new record, reaching R$352.3 billion, with increase in both comparisons: 2.5% (an increase of R$8.6 billion) in the quarter and 6.4% (an increase of R$21.3 billion) in the year. 

The average usual real earnings of workers reached R$3,484, growing 1.3% in the quarter and 3.8% in the year. The increase in the quarterly comparison was driven by public administration, defense, social security, education, human health, and social services (1.8%, or an increase of R$86). Earnings of the other groups did not change significantly in this comparison.

Against the same quarter in 2024, there was an increase in the average earnings of five categories: Agriculture, livestock, forestry, fishing and aquaculture (7.2%, or R$ 149), Construction (7.0%, or more R$ 178), Information, Communication and Financial, Real Estate, Professional and Administrative Activities (5.3%, or R$ 246), Public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services (3.2%, or R$ 151) and Domestic services (5.0%, or R$ 63).

William Kratochwill observes that "labor market indicators are reaching remarkable levels, with underutilization measures at or near minimum levels. However, earnings have shown marginal changes, except for military and civil servants, which has contributed to the increase in average income in the country."

More about the survey

Continuous PNAD is the main survey on workforce in Brazil. Its sample includes 211 thousand households, spread over 3.500 municipalities in the 27 Federation Units, which are visited every quarter. Nearly two thousand interviewers work in the survey, integrated with more than 500 IBGE branches in the entire country.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IBGE implemented data collection by telephone on March 17, 2020. In July 2021, the data collection became face-to-face once again.

The identity of the interviewers can be confirmed at the Answering the IBGE website or through the Call Center (0800 7218181), and their ID numbers can be requested by the informants.

See PNAD data on Sidra. The next release of the Monthly Continuous PNAD, related to August, will be on September 30.