The unemployment rate dropped again and reached 8.7% in the third quarter, as informed by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). It is the lowest level since the second quarter of 2015 (8.4%).
Unemployment stood at 9.3% in the second quarter, the most recent in the comparable historical series of Pnad Contínua (Continuous National Household Sample Survey).
The number of unemployed, in turn, dropped to 9.5 million by September. It is the lowest level since December 2015 (9.2 million).
We are in the process of normalization, returning to the pre-pandemic scenario ", says Alex Agostini, an economist at the Austin Rating risk rating agency.
Pnad portrays both the formal labor market, with a formal contract, and the informal one. The number of employees without a formal contract in the private sector has reached 13.2 million. It's the highest in the series.
Although positive, the drop in unemployment was accompanied by strong growth in the number of workers without a formal contract, something that in the long term could end up being harmful to the country", indicated a report by CM Capital authored by economist Matheus Pizzani.
Translated by Cassy Dias