Unemployment rate falls to 8.9% in July

Unemployment rate fell to 8.9% in July, Statistics Portugal (INE) disclosed, this Friday. This percentage stands below the value registered in the previous month and also below INE’s provisional estimate. It is expected that the unemployment rate will remain the same in August.

These seasonally adjusted data reveal that July’s unemployment rate decreased 0.2 percentage points in comparison to the previous month. Definitive estimates further reveal a downwards revision from the provisional data disclosed one month ago, when INE pointed to a 9.1% rate.

It is estimated that the unemployed population corresponds to 459.6 thousand people in July, 1.9% less than in June. The decrease occurred both for men (-2.5%) and women (-1.3%). As for the number of employed people, the number rose by 0.5% to 4.7 million people.

The youth continues to be one of the groups most affected by unemployment: the rate stands at 23% and, yet, this percentage was more expressive in June (23.7%).

INE anticipates an unemployment rate estimate of 8.9% for August 2017, but the final data will only be known in the end of next month. The provisional estimate points to a 0.1% monthly decrease in the number of employed people and a 0.4% increase for the unemployed.

As a reaction to these numbers disclosed by INE, Employment State secretary, Miguel Cabrita, says he is confident in the recovery trajectory of the Portuguese labor market. “We are witnessing a very consolidated improvement of employment indicators in line with economic growth, which is definitely the result of a shift in the Portuguese society from the view point of different agents”, Miguel Cabrita stated. He also highlighted the decrease in youth unemployment — which stood at 27.1% last year.