MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian unemployment statistically stable at 11.6% in the Aug/Oct quarter

Brazil's unemployment rate fell to 11.6% in the quarter ending in October, from 11.8% in the quarter ending in July, the country's Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) announced. The rate also fell slightly, compared with the same period of 2018 when it was at 11.7%.

IBGE said in its report that the country's unemployment rate “remained statistically stable.”

The stats agency said the unemployed population amounted to 12.4 million people in the quarter ending in October, while the employed population reached 94.1 million people, achieving a 0.5-percent growth compared with the previous quarter ending in July.

According to IBGE, the number of people employed with a formal contract in the private sector was 33.2 million, while the number of people employed without a formal contract in the private sector arrived at 11.9 million. And the number of self-employed workers reached 24.4 million.

Having changed from 24.6% to 23.8%, the compound underutilization rate of the workforce was 0.8 percentage point lower than that in the previous quarter ending in July.