Portuguese unemployment is estimated to have fallen to 6.2% in August

Unemployment rate is estimated to have retreated to 6.2% in August, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). Last month, the INE had revealed that July would have been good for the labor market, with the unemployment rate shrinking a tenth to 6.5%. This figure was, however, provisional. And has now been revised downwards to 6.4% in the transition to definitive.

“In August 2019, the provisional estimate of the unemployment rate was 6.2%, having fallen 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous month, 0.4 p.p. from three months earlier and 0.8 p.p. from August 2018,” writes the INE, which added that “in August 2019, the unemployed population – whose provisional estimate was 318.8 thousand people – decreased 4.2% (13.9 thousand) in relation to the previous month (July 2019), 6.4% (21.9 thousand) relative to three months earlier (May 2019) and 11.6% (41.9 thousand) relative to the same month last year”.

On the employment side, INE states that, in August 2019, “the provisional estimate of the employed population corresponded to 4,862 thousand people and increased by 0.4% (18.2 thousand) compared to the previous month, 0.5% (23.1 thousand) compared to three months earlier (May 2019) and 1.1% (54.8 thousand) compared to the same month in 2018”.

Last month, INE had predicted that July would have been a good month in the labor market with a decline of a tenth in the unemployment rate compared to June. This trajectory has now been consolidated. Thus, the provisional unemployment rate was 6.5% and in the transition to definitive went up to 6.4%. This downward revision results from the fact that more than 3.1 thousand people in employment and 4.1 thousand fewer unemployed people were detected.