Unemployment rate rises to 7.2% in May
The month of May saw a worsening of unemployment in Portugal, with the rate rising to 7.2%.
In May, the unemployment rate worsened again. According to a statement released this Wednesday by Statistics Portugal (INE), the rate rose to 7.2%, which means 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) more than in April.
In this specific month, the unemployed population increased by 3.1%, from the previous month, and 25.4%, year-on-year, to 364.8 thousand people. The employed population also grew, although in this case, the variation was lighter, 0.3% quarter-on-quarter and 3.5% year-on-year, to 4,734.5 thousand people.
Thus, in May, the unemployment rate worsened to 7.2% (0.2 p.p. more than in the previous month and a further 1.2 p.p. than in May 2020), but also the employment rate rose to 61.7% (0.2 p.p. more than in April and 2.1 p.p. more than in the same month of 2020).
On the other hand, the labour underutilisation rate retreated to 12.8%, i.e. 0.1 p.p. less than in April and 2.1 p.p. less than in May 2020.
