Portuguese unemployment rate at 6.5% in October

Unemployment rate will have stood at 6.5% in October, which means a stabilization compared to September when it reached the same figure, revealed the National Statistics Institute (INE) this Thursday.

The INE revised downward the September figure to 6.5% but maintained the upward trend already advanced the previous month, although less pronounced. In August, the monthly unemployment rate determined by INE stood at 6.4%. Thus, between August and September, the unemployment rate worsened by a tenth.

The provisional figure for the unemployment rate for October places this indicator above the target set by the Government in the draft State Budget for 2020, which the Executive sent to Brussels on 15 October. The government’s aim is to improve the situation of the labour market in relation to 2018 when the unemployment rate was set at 7%.

If next month the INE confirms the provisional figure of October, the monthly unemployment rate will show a reduction of only one tenth compared to the same month last year. In October 2018, the unemployment rate stood at 6.6%.

The INE anticipates that in October, “the youth unemployment rate was estimated at 18.3%, having fallen 0.6 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous month. The adult unemployment rate was estimated at 5.6% and remained the same as the previous month”.

In October, the unemployed population was 340 thousand people, remaining “unchanged” from the previous month. The INE anticipates that increased by 1.7% (5,600 people) over three months earlier (July 2019), but decreased by 0.7% (2,500 people) over the same period last year.

As for the employed population, the INE anticipates that, for October, “the provisional estimate of the employed population corresponded to 4,867 thousand people and decreased by 0.1% (4 thousand) over the previous month, increased by 0.5% (23.6 thousand) over three months earlier (July 2019) and 0.9% (45.3 thousand) compared with the same month in 2018.