The unemployment rate in Brazil’s six major metropolitan areas in May was 10.2%, less than in April, when it was 10.8%, and less than in May, 2004, when it affected 12.2% of the economically active population.
The data released today by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show that the decline in the unemployment rate in May was the first significant drop this year.
Employment levels rose in nearly all the regions surveyed. Compared with April, the number of workers holding formal jobs increased 1.8%, representing an increment of 141 thousand people in Recife, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Porto Alegre.
Workers’ average real wages dropped 1.5% in May, in comparison with April. This was the second decline in a row.
According to the study, this loss was the result of a 1.2% decline in the income of civil servants, as well as a decline in the incomes of self-employed workers and employers. The income of workers in private enterprise, on the other hand, remained unchanged in May.
ABr