Portugal’s unemployment rate remains at 6.4% in October
Statistics Portugal (INE) reported on Tuesday that the country's unemployment rate stood at 6.4% in October, the same as the previous month, but 1.2 p.p. less than a year ago.
The country’s unemployment rate remained at 6.4% in October, unchanged from the previous month, Statistics Portugal (INE) announced this Tuesday.
According to the statistics office, the unemployment rate stood at 6.4%, the same as the previous month, but 1.2 p.p. less than a year ago. The employment rate remained at 62.8%, down 0.2 p.p. from September, but up 1.7 p.p. from the same period in 2020.
INE detailed that, in absolute terms, the unemployed population rose 1% QoQ to 331.6 thousand people, which still represents a decrease of 13.8% YoY. The employed population fell 0.3% QoQ to 4,822,000 people, which corresponds to an increase of 2.9% compared to October 2020.
The active population stood, in October, at 5,153.6 thousand individuals, 0.2% less than the previous month, but 1.7% more than in the same period. “The decrease of the active population resulted from the decrease of the employed population by 14.0 thousand (0.3%) having surpassed the increase of the unemployed population (3.2 thousand; 1.0%),” INE explains.
The inactive population, meanwhile, increased by 0.5% YoY to 2,528.7 thousand people, a figure that corresponds, on the other hand, to a retreat of 2.6% compared to October 2020. “The increase of the inactive population was mainly explained by the increase of the number of other inactive persons not available and not seeking a job (21.7 thousand; 0.9%),” the statistics office points out.
The labour underutilisation rate stood at 11.8%, down 0.2 p.p. from September and down 3.0 from the same period in 2020. “In October 2021, the labour underutilisation reached its lowest value (626.9 thousand) since the beginning of series started in 2011,” notes INE.
