Brazil continues to record unemployment records: 14.4 million people are unemployed

Brazil recorded a historic record of 14.4 million job seekers in the period December 2020-February 2021, up 2 million from a year ago, when the coronavirus pandemic barely reached the country, official sources reported on Friday.

The unemployment rate reached 14.4%, down from 11.6% in the same period a year earlier., said the statistical institute of the IBGE, which reports on the basis of moving shifts.

The percentage increase, of 0.2 point compared to November 2020-January 2021, was the second in a row after four months of decline Yes brings the index closer to the all-time high of 14.6% recorded in July-September 2020.

“We are struck by the record for the unemployed population, which reached 14.4 million. This reinforces the prospect of a fragile labor market, which is why domestic demand cannot be seen as a driver of GDP this year, ”writes analyst André Perfeito, of the consultancy firm Necton.

The weakness of the labor market is not only reflected in the unemployment rate, which takes into account those who are actively looking for a job. We also see it in the contingent of “discouraged(Who stopped looking for a job for lack of opportunities), which hit a record 6 million in December-February, an increase of 26.8% year-on-year.

“In a pandemic year, there was a reduction of 7.8 million jobsSaid the IBGE report.

Brazil’s GDP contracted by 4.1% in 2020, much less than initially expected, thanks to subsidies granted to nearly a third of the population. These subsidies, interrupted in January, resumed in April, but for a smaller segment of the population and for smaller amounts.

Market Forecast Predicts 3.09% Economic Growth This Year for Latin America’s Largest Economy, an estimate recently revised downwards due to the impact of the second wave of the pandemic, much more deadly than the first.

The first case of coronavirus was recorded in Brazil in February 2020 and the first death in March. Since, more than 400,000 Brazilians have lost their lives to the disease, without the country seeing the end of the tunnel due to the slowness of vaccination campaigns and the lack of political coordination.

A parliamentary committee is investigating the responsibilities of the government Jair Bolsonaro in the lack of control of the health crisis.

(With information from AFP)

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