Unemployment rate falls to 6.3% in November
Last November brought a drop in the unemployment rate and an increase in the employed population.
The unemployment rate was 6.3% in November, down 0.1 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous month, according to data released Friday by Statistics Portugal (INE). The employed population grew.
“The unemployment rate stood at 6.3%, down 0.1 pp from the previous month, the same value as in three months before and down 0.9 pp from a year before,” the statistics office said in a press release, detailing that in November, 326,900 people were unemployed in Portugal, 0.8% less than the previous month.
On the other hand, the employed population saw a year-on-year rise of 0.3% and a year-on-year jump of 3.1% to 4,852.8 thousand individuals. The employment rate thus rose 0.1 percentage points to 63.2%.
As for the active population, INE indicates that there was an increase both in relation to October (0.2%) and November 2020 (2.1%), totalling 5,179.7 thousand people. The inactive population, meanwhile, comprised 2,506.4 thousand people, 0.3% less than in the previous month and 3.7% less than a year ago.
In November, the labour underutilisation rate also fell: it stood at 11.7%, the same value as in October, according to INE, and 2.3 p.p. below that recorded in the same month of 2020. “In November 2021, the labour underutilisation reached its lowest value (621.4 thousand) since the beginning of series started in 2011,” Statistics Portugal reveals.
