The Secretary of State for Labor said in a statement to Lusa this Friday that Portugal’s unemployment rate was under control, explaining that the 6.4% registered in November was affected by seasonality.
“The data that INE today [Instituto Nacional de Estatística] revelations must be read, apparently with care and knowing how to frame them for the moment of the year in which we live. In November, we always, historically, have an increase in unemployment, which is easily justified by seasonality and jobs created in the summer. […]. Fortunately, we have a very low and manageable unemployment rate,” said Miguel Fontes, speaking to Lusa.
According to preliminary data released by INE, the unemployment rate rose to 6.4% in November 2022, the highest since July 2021 and comparable to 6.0% in October and 6.2% in November 2021.
According to the INE Employment and Unemployment Monthly Estimates, “In November 2022, the unemployment rate increased to 6.4%, the highest reading since July 2021, when it stood at 6.6%.
This release of the INE brought the unemployment rate down last October from an originally estimated 6.1% to 6.0%.
According to INE estimates, in November 2022, the active population (5,198.4 thousand) decreased by 1.8 thousand people compared to the previous month (which corresponds to almost zero relative variation) and increased by 0.5% compared to previous month. November 2021.
“I think it’s really important to highlight that we’ve never had as many people working as we have throughout 2022. I can say that this is the biggest year for the employed population since the records were recorded. We have reached five million people. people per worker in Portugal. A very significant number,” the minister defended.
He stressed that Portugal has already restored even the pre-pandemic level, and compared to 2015, there are half a million more workers.
Miguel Fontes explained that there are 123,000 more people working in the country today than before the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to measures that prevented job losses.
For an official, the country knows how to grow economically while maintaining a sustainable public accounts trajectory, indicators that inspire confidence in terms of employment.
Asked if the government believes that this trajectory will continue in the coming months, the Secretary of State replied that one can only get an idea of the change given the history of recent years.
Thus, the Government does not count on a “situation of a significant increase in unemployment”.
At the same time, he noted that the only thing “that can be taken for granted is uncertainty,” recalling factors such as the war in Ukraine.
“We have to have the humility to follow the numbers and see how they get around, looking for people who remain unemployed in order to be able to return to the labor market as quickly as possible,” he concluded.
According to INE, the chain decline in the active population “was due to the decline in the employed population (20.1 thousand; 0.4%), which exceeded the increase in the unemployed population (18.4 thousand; 5.9%)”.
A chain increase of 0.1% of the inactive population, up to 2461.0 thousand people, “was explained mainly by an increase in the number of other inactive people, those who are not employed and are not looking for work (4.8 thousand; 0.2% )”. In October, the number of the inactive population was the lowest since February 1998 (2457.9 thousand people).
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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