Unemployment rate stabilises at 5.8% in April
The estimated unemployment rate for April is the same as that for March, which was revised upwards by INE (from 5.7% to 5.8%).
The country’s unemployment rate stood at 5.8% in April, according to data released by Statistics Portugal (INE) on Tuesday. This figure is the same as the previous month’s, which was revised upwards by the statistics office (from 5.7% to 5.8%), but lower by 1.1 percentage points than a year earlier.
“In April 2022, the estimated active population decreased from the previous month by 5.4 thousand people (0.1%) and the estimated inactive population increased by 4.3 thousand (0.2%),” INE said. This resulted from the reduction in the employed population, while the unemployed population increased by 0.3%.
If the comparison is made with April 2021, the scenario is the opposite: an increase of the active population (of 2.2%), which was accompanied by an increase of the employed population (163.0 thousand; 3.5%) that “offset the decrease of the unemployed population”.
The INE also indicated that, in April, “the labour underutilisation covered 598.4 thousand people, a lower number than in the previous month (1.2 thousand; 0.2%), than in three months before (5.5 thousand; 0.9%) and than in the same month of 2021 (84.9 thousand; 12.4%”. The labour underutilisation rate was estimated at 11.2%.
