Unemployment rate increases to 6.9% in April

The unemployment rate in Portugal stood at 6.9% in April, representing an increase of 0.3 percentage points (p.p.) compared to March and 0.5 p.p. compared to the previous year, according to data from Statistics Portugal (INE). The employed population and the labour underutilisation rate stabilised in the fourth month of this year.

“In April 2021, the unemployed population – estimated at 348.7 thousand people – has increased by 4.9% (16.2 thousand) from the previous month, by 1.0% (3.5 thousand) from three months before and by 9.0% (28.9 thousand) from one year before,” notes INE. Thus, the unemployment rate was 6.9%, a figure higher than in the previous month and year-on-year, having remained unchanged from January 2021.

This situation occurs at a time when the active population has been increasing (5,063.9 thousand people in April), and there is more availability to look for work. This since the lockdown, which began in mid-January, prevented the search for work, impacting on the numbers. The measures began to be relaxed from April, as the pandemic indicators improved, increasing the Portuguese with conditions to work.

The labour underutilisation rate was estimated at 12.9% in April, “remained unchanged from the previous month and decreased by 0.9 p.p. from January 2021 and by 0.8 p.p. from a year earlier,” Statistics Portugal explains.

Looking by age groups, in April this year, the “youth unemployment rate (24.0%) increased by 1.8 p.p. from the previous month and the adults’ unemployment rate (5.7%) has increased by 0.2 p.p.,” INE adds.

The employed population “remained practically unchanged from the previous month,” at 4,715.2 thousand people. The employment rate also stabilised at 61.4%.