The number of unemployed in job centers is at its lowest in eight years

  • ECO News
  • 21 June 2017

The number of unemployed has been declining for 44 months. In May, the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) had 432 thousand unemployed registered.

The number of unemployed registered in job centers has declined once again in May, this time to 432,274. It is the lowest number in eight and a half years: in December 2008, 426 thousand unemployed were registered in job centers, in Portugal.

The number of unemployed registered on the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP – Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) is falling for 44 months in a row — in comparison to the homologous periods. In May, there was a 19.2% decrease. When making a monthly comparison, there is also a decrease of 4.1%.

Looking at the number of new registrations in IEFP, there has been a monthly increase regarding May (15.6%), although there has been an homologous decreasing tendency (-12.9%). Data on new registrations throughout the month have been more volatile and indicate there were 43,573 unemployed in IEFP last month.

The IEFP does not only comprehend the unemployed: there are also people resorting to the institute to change jobs (59,159 by the end of May), who are temporarily considered unavailable due to an illness (23,061) or the occupied.

The occupied are those who are participating in professional and job training programmes (except those programmes aiming to directly include them in the labor market). In May, the number of occupied increased by 9.7% in comparison to the same period of 2016, although it decreased 1.7% in comparison to April. There were 103,496 people registered as occupied.