Unemployment rate drops to 6.5% in 2020

In the last month of 2020, the unemployment rate stood at 6.5%, a fall both compared to the previous month and to the same period in 2019. The data released this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE) show, however, that the employed population also shrank by 0.9% compared to November.

In December, unemployment stood at 0.6 percentage points (p.p.) below the rate recorded in November and 0.2 p.p. below that recorded in the same month of 2019. According to INE, this was the fourth consecutive month in which this indicator shrank, and is now very close to the monthly figures recorded before the pandemic.

Even so, December was synonymous with a decline in the employed population. “The provisional estimate for the employed population, which stood at 4,793.4 thousand people, decreased by 0.2% (10.3 thousand) from the previous month and by 1.1% (52.7 thousand) from a year earlier,” said the National Statistics Institute.

The active population also decreased. INE reports that “in December 2020, the provisional estimate of the active population stood at 5,124.5 thousand people, having decreased by 0.9% from the month before, 0.6% from three months before and by 1.3% from a year earlier.”