Jobless rate unchanged at 6.7% in Q4; annual rate falls to 7.0% – INE
The number of unemployed people in Portugal was unchanged in the last quarter of 2018, while the annual average dropped to 7%, from 8.9% in 2017.
Portugal’s jobless rate was unchanged at 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018, leaving the annual average at 7.0%, down from 8.9% in 2017, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) announced on Wednesday.
The fourth-quarter rate is 1.4 percentage points down from the same quarter of 2017, corresponding to the lowest rate in the series that was started in the first quarter of 2011.
The figures confirm estimates issued by analysts to Lusa.
According to the INE, the number of Portuguese unemployed was 349,100 people, down 3,600 or 1.0% from the previous quarter, so returning to the downward trend seen since the second quarter of 2016 and only interrupted in the third quarter of 2018.
In relation to the fourth quarter of 2018, the decrease in the number of jobless was 72,900 or 17.3%.
