Unemployment falls by 20,6% in a year
The data released this Tuesday emphasizes the trend registered in the country of a marked fall in unemployment since January this year.
Unemployment keeps its downwards trend. The number of people out of work registered by the Portuguese National Careers Service (IEFP) has decreased again in the month of July, registering a year-on-year 20,6% fall. Last month IEFP registered 330,6 thousand unemployed people at their centres, its lowest account since 2002 (it hasn’t been this low for 16 years).
The majority of unemployed people were women (56%) above the 25 years old line. In absolute terms, IEFP’s release also shows that there was a year-on-year 30% decrease in youth unemployment (under 25 years old), representing in the month of July only a 9,4% of the total of unemployed people registered at IEFP.
According to the same report, the IEFP received around 493,2 thousand job seeking requests. From that number, 66,5% were corresponding to people who were unemployed, while 10,1% were already employed, 18,1% were busy citizens, and 5,1% were temporarily unavailable.
IEFP’s data are concordant with the data released by the National Office for Statistics (INE) on the 8th of August. According to the INE, the unemployment rate had decreased by 6,7% during the second trimester, having reached a new minimum since 2004. Unemployment has been decreasing for the last two years.
