MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil unemployment at its lowest level since 2001: 7.6%

Brazilian unemployment in August fell to its lowest level since 2001 thanks in part to the nation's solid economic growth. The country's official statistics institute IBGE said the rate dropped to 7.6% from 8.1% in July and 1.9 percentage points from August 2007.

In jobs terms this means that 21.8 million Brazilians held formal jobs in August, up 0.7% from July and 3.7% than a year earlier. IBGE measures unemployment in six of Brazil's largest metropolitan areas. The drop in unemployment coincides with the recent improvement of the nation's economy, which grew by 6.1% in the second quarter of 2008 and averaged 6% in the last four quarters, the fastest 12 month pace since 1995. The Brazilian Central Bank is concerned with inflation which has kept steady and above target in spite of falling prices for food. These have been offset by robust domestic demand. Monthly inflation for non-food items accelerated to 0.41% through mid-September, from 0.38% last month, according to the benchmark IPCA-15 index released yesterday. The Central Bank target for 2008 is 4.5%. A drop in commodity prices and slower global economic growth may help rein in inflation, monetary policy authorities said in the minutes of their September 9/10 meeting.