Unemployment rate falls to 6.1% in 2021 Q3

The country’s unemployment rate fell from 6.7% in the second quarter to 6.1% in the third quarter of 2021, according to Statistics Portugal (INE).

This rate is already below pre-pandemic levels (6.3% in the third quarter of 2019). However, the second quarter of 2020 (5.7%) is not considered, due to the fact that many unemployed people were not counted because they weren’t able to search for a job during the pandemic’s peak period, something essential to be considered in the statistics.

“The unemployment rate stood at 6.1%, down 0.6 percentage points (p.p) from the previous quarter, down 1.9 pp from a year earlier and down 0.2 pp from the 3rd quarter of 2019,” INE explained.

At this moment, there is more employed population than in the pre-pandemic period (+71.5 thousand), compared to the third quarter of 2019. In total, there were 4,878.1 thousand people employed in the third quarter of 2021, 67.6 thousand more than in the second quarter and 219.7 thousand more compared to the third quarter of 2020, still affected by the pandemic crisis.

The unemployed population shrank by 27 thousand from the previous quarter and by 84.8 thousand from the third quarter of 2020, to 318.7 thousand people.

Also in the third quarter, labour underutilisation covered 642.4 thousand people, falling by 1.8% (11.8 thousand) from the previous quarter and by 20.1% (162 thousand) from a year before. The labour underutilisation rate (11.9%) has decreased both from the previous quarter (0.4 p.p) and from a year earlier (3.2 p.p).

The quarterly perspective shows how between July and September job creation comes from the services sector, specifically from the business areas around tourism, such as trade, transport, accommodation and catering. In the year-on-year perspective, given that in 2020 there were more pandemic restrictions, an increase in the services sector is also noticeable, followed by public administration and education.