Unemployment in Portugal falls to 5.9% in Q1
According to INE, between January and March, the unemployment rate in Portugal fell to 5.9% in the first quarter, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.
The unemployment rate in Portugal fell to 5.9% in the first quarter, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter and 1.2 percentage points from the same quarter in 2021, the INE said on Wednesday.
According to Statistics Portugal(INE), between January and March, the unemployed population, estimated at 308,400 people, decreased by 6.7% (22,200) compared to the previous quarter and fell 14.3% (51,700) year-on-year.
The employed population was nearly 4.901 million, up by 0.4% (21,900) from the previous quarter and 4.7% (219,300) year-on-year.
Similarly, the corresponding employment rate, which stood at 56.4%, increased over the two comparison periods: by 0.4 percentage points and 2.5 percentage points, respectively.
The inactive population aged 16 and over was estimated at 3.593 million, down 0.5% (19,000) from the previous quarter and 4.3% (159,800) from the same quarter.
The underutilisation of labour – which aggregates the unemployed population, the underemployment of part-time workers, the inactive looking for work but not available and the inactive available but not seeking employment – covered, in turn, 618,200 people, having decreased 1.9% (11,900) from the previous quarter and 17.2% (128,200) from the same quarter.
The underutilisation rate of labour, estimated at 11.5%, decreased by 0.2 percentage points quarter-to-quarter and 2.6 percentage points quarter-to-quarter.
The proportion of the employed population who always or almost always worked from home using information and communication technologies, i.e. teleworking, was 10.4%, covering 510,200 people, which was the second-lowest proportion of this indicator, after that of the fourth quarter of 2021, since it began to be monitored in the second quarter of 2020.
In the first quarter of 2022, 46.2% of the unemployed population had been unemployed for 12 months or more (long-term unemployment), down 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter and up 12.7 percentage points from the previous quarter.
The unemployment rate of young people aged 16 to 24 decreased faster than that of overall unemployment, which is estimated at 20.6%, down by 2.8 percentage points from the previous quarter and 3.5 percentage points from the corresponding quarter.
From January to March, the unemployment rate was higher than the national average in four regions of the country (Madeira: 7.5%; Algarve: 7.0%; Metropolitan Area of Lisbon: 6.8% and the Azores: 6.6%) and lower in the remaining three regions (North and Centre: 5.4% in both; and Alentejo: 5.1%).
In quarterly terms, the unemployment rate increased in three regions, particularly in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (0.9 percentage points), and decreased in four regions, with the largest decrease in the Autonomous Region of the Azores (1.6 percentage points).
In the year-on-year comparison, the unemployment rate decreased in all NUTS II regions, particularly in the Algarve (3.2 percentage points).
Using figures from the fourth quarter of 2021 for comparison purposes in the European Union, the youth unemployment rate in the average of the 27 countries was estimated at 14.4%, 9.0 percentage points less than in Portugal (23.4%), which in that quarter had the fourth-highest rate in the EU-27, along with Romania.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, the youth unemployment rate in the EU-27 decreased by 1.7 percentage points compared to the third quarter of 2021, while in Portugal, it increased by 0.8 percentage points over the same period.
For the last quarter of 2020, both rates moved in the same direction but decreased more in the EU-27 (3.2 percentage points) than in Portugal (0.9 percentage points).
