Unemployment rate falls to 7.9% in January. A new recovery is expected for February
Data from INE (Statistics Portugal) indicates that the unemployment rate dropped below 8% in January. In February, the provisional estimate points to 7.8%.
In January, the unemployment rate stood below 8%. In the first month of the year, unemployment decreased to 7.9%, according to data disclosed this Tuesday by INE (Statistics Portugal), which confirm the estimate disclosed one month ago. Concerning February, provisional data states there will be a new fall, this time to 7.8%.
The 7.9% rate in January “corresponds to a null revision from the provisional estimate released one month ago and only going back to July 2004 it is possible to find a rate lower than that“, INE states. This rate represents a 0.1 percentage points’ decrease in comparison to the previous month, and of 2.2 points in comparison to January of 2017.
The unemployed population in January was estimated to be 409.4 thousand people, 0.7% less in comparison to December. As for the employed population, it increased 0.1%.
Concerning February, the provisional estimate points to a 7.8% unemployment rate, one tenth smaller than in January. The numbers will be confirmed on April 30.
