RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The country’s unemployment rate stood at 14.1% in the second quarter of 2021, according to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad) that was released Tuesday (31) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
The result was lower than that of the first quarter of 2021 (14.7%, a record high) but is the highest rate for a second-quarter in the entire historical series of the IBGE, which began in 2012. The second worst April-June performance was recorded in 2020 (13.3%), marked by the pandemic’s onset in the country.
In the second quarter of 2021, there were 14.444 million unemployed people in the country – people aged 14 or older who were looking for work but not finding it. The figure shows a decrease of 2.4% compared to the first quarter (361,000 fewer people), although it is considered statistically stable by IBGE. Compared to the same period in 2020, there was a 12.9% increase (1.654 million more people).
The number of people in employment (employees, employers, civil servants) was 87.8 million. This represents an increase of 2.5% compared to the first quarter (2.1 million more people employed). Compared to the second quarter of 2020, the increase is 5.3% or 4.4 million more people.
The labor force – people 14 and older who are employed or looking for a job – was 102.2 million in the second quarter of 2021, up 1.8% from the same period in 2020 (1.78 million more people).
Twenty-two of the 27 federal states recorded a decrease in the unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2021, compared to the first three months of the year.
Of the 22 units with negative rates of change in the transition between the first and second quarters of 2021, only four were classified by the IBGE as having statistically significant declines. They were: Amazonas (from 17.5% to 15.6%), Espírito Santo (from 12.9% to 11.4%), Rio de Janeiro (from 19.4% to 18%) and Minas Gerais (from 13.8% to 12.5%).
In the state of São Paulo, the unemployment rate was 14.4% in the second quarter, compared to 14.6% in the first quarter of 2021.
The highest unemployment rates were in Pernambuco (21.6%), Bahia (19.7%), Sergipe (19.1%), and Alagoas (18.8%). The lowest rates were in Santa Catarina (5.8%), Rio Grande do Sul (8.8%), Mato Grosso (9.0%), Paraná (9.1%), and Mato Grosso do Sul (9.9%).