MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian unemployment climbs to 9% in March

Brazilian unemployment remained steady with a growing tendency in March, having reached the highest since September 2007, 9%, reported the country’s Statistics and Geography Institute, Ibge.

This is up from 8.5% in February and a jump from a year ago, 8.6%. In practical terms this means that 141.000 people lost their jobs last month, which means the total number of people seeking jobs has now reached 2.1 million.

Brazil’s jobless total has been increasing despite Brazil's robust financial institutions along with aggressive government stimulus measures including tax and interest rate cuts.

The Brazilian economy shrank 3.6% in the last quarter of 2008, and economists are forecasting 2009 will end with 0.5% contraction.