Unemployment rate rises to 6.4% in September

  • ECO News
  • 2 November 2021

Portugal's unemployment rate stood at 6.4% in September, up 0.1 percentage points from August.

After three months of decline, the unemployment rate rose to 6.4% in September. At stake is an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared to August, according to data released on Tuesday by Statistics Portugal (INE). Still, compared to the same period in 2020, there was a drop of 1.6 percentage points.

According to the figures that were published this morning, in September, the working population decreased by 0.2% compared to the previous month, while increasing by 1.9% year-on-year. “The decrease of the active population resulted from the decrease of the employed population being higher than the increase of the unemployed population,” explains the statistics office.

As for the employed population, It has decreased by 0.3% from August and by 3.7% from September 2020.

The unemployed population increased by 1.9% from the previous month but fell 18.2% year-on-year, a dynamic that is mirrored in the unemployment rate, which rose compared to August but decreased compared to September 2020.

The labour underutilisation rate stood at 12.0%, down 0.3 percentage points from August and 3.4 percentage points from a year ago. “In September 2021, the labour underutilisation reached its lowest value (639.7 thousand) since the beginning of the series started in 2011,” INE highlights.