The unemployment rate increased to 5.8% in Q3

The unemployment rate in Portugal rose to 5.8%, up 0.1 percentage points (pp) from the last quarter and down 0.3 pp from the same period a year ago, announced Statistics Portugal (INE) in a report published this Wednesday.

In the third quarter, the unemployment rate was higher than the national average in three regions of the country: in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (7.6%), in Madeira (6.2%) and the Azores (6.0%). It was the same in the North (5.8%) and lower in the remaining three regions: Algarve (4.4%), Centre (4.3%) and Alentejo (4.3%).

As for the unemployed population (305.8 thousand people), it has increased by 2.3% (7.0 thousand) from the previous quarter and decreased by 4.1% (12.9 thousand) from a year earlier.

“To the year-on-year change of the unemployed population contributed mainly the following population groups decreases: men (8.2 thousand; 5.7%); people aged 16 to 24 (10.7 thousand; 13.9%); with tertiary education (14.7 thousand; 15.3%); looking for a new job (14.3 thousand; 5.2%); and unemployed for 12 months or longer (24.8 thousand; 16.2%).” INE explains.

In the third quarter, 42.1% of the unemployed population was in this situation for 12 months or longer, known as long-term unemployment, down 8.8 pp from the quarter before and down 6.0 pp from a year earlier.

The inactive population (3,575.4 thousand people) has declined by 0.8% (29.0 thousand) from the previous quarter and by 1.0% (36.8 thousand) from a year ago.

(Article last updated at 12h04 pm)