The reopening of trade and services amid the pandemic intensified the increase in Brazil's unemployment, which broke a record and reached 13.8% in the quarter ended in July. It is the largest rate in the Pnad (National Household Sample Survey) historical series, which has calculated the country's official unemployment rate starting in 2012.
This represents 13.1 million people in the job queue, according to data from IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) released on Wednesday (30).
In the previous quarter, ended in April, unemployment in Brazil had closed at 12.6%. In January, the rate was 11.2%. Compared to the same quarter of 2019, the increase in unemployment was two percentage points or 561 thousand people.
The employed population also broke a negative record, with a decrease of 7.2 million people (8.1%) and reaching 82 million Brazilians, the smallest in the IBGE historical series.
In January, even before the pandemic, 94.2 million Brazilians were employed. In the same period last year, the fall was 11.6 million (12.3%) of workers.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon