Q3 drop in unemployment has been uneven in Brazil

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) last week reported a sizable decrease in unemployment figures, with the rate of Brazilians looking for work dropping from 9.3 to 8.7 percent in Q3. But further data disclosed on Thursday shows sharp differences between labor market conditions in different regions.

In Q3, only six of 27 state capitals registered a real drop in unemployment, that is, outside the margins of error.

“In Q2, unemployment had dropped by 1.8 percentage points — with the improvement felt across 22 states,” explained Adriana Beringuy, IBGE’s coordinator of work and income surveys. “In Q3, however, the decline was less intense, of 0.6 points, and more concentrated.”

Drops were registered in the states of Paraná, Minas Gerais, Maranhão, Acre, Ceará, and Rondônia. 

The Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region, still has the highest unemployment rate, at 12 percent. Six of the ten states with the worst unemployment figures are in the region. Meanwhile in the much wealthier South, only 5.2 percent of workers are out of a job — well below national figures.

The division between regions is also very clear with regard to the informality rate — which stands at almost 40 percent nationally. In states such as Amazonas and Pará, in the North, and Maranhão, in the Northeast, the rate tops the 55-percent mark. In states with higher human development indexes, it hovers around 30 percent.

Unemployment is also higher among black and mixed race people (11 and 10 percent, respectively). Among whites, it is below 7 percent. 

The Northeast has the highest proportion of self-declared black people (11.4 percent), while more than 70 percent of the population in the North region is mixed race. Meanwhile, the white population is larger in the South (75.1 percent) and Southeast (50.7 percent) regions.

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