Report: Brazil Unemployment Drops to Record Low

The unemployment rate in Brazil fell to a record 4.6 percent in December last year from 4.9 percent the month before.

Figures released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show the Brazilian economy is beginning to accelerate again, after somewhat of a slowdown the last two years.

The IBGE said 4.6 percent was the lowest unemployment rate it ever recorded.

Unemployment in Brazil reached to a record 12.4 percent in 2003, but dropped to 6 percent in 2011. Analysts say the job market has been performing extremely well since 2011.

Brazil Minister of Labor Brizola Neto has attributed the jobs growth to President Dilma Rousseff’s economic policy.

For the past two years, Brazil has been stimulating its manufacturing sector offering a wide range of incentives and tax benefits to companies who set up manufacturing units inside the country.

“This historic result shows that the Brazilian labor market continues to move forward on all fronts. It also reflects the successful policies and measures employed by President Dilma Rousseff to incentivize production in order to overcome the global financial crisis,” Brizola Neto said.

The minister said the shrinking unemployment rate indicate that the Brazilian economy was heading in the ‘right direction’.

Given the statistics from IBGE, more than 72,000 people found job in December last year. On an average, Brazil’s employed population comprised 23 million in 2012, representing a 2.2 percent increase over 2011 (22.5 million).

The number of formal workers in the private sector (11.5 million) increased 1.3 percent in December 2012. Given the data collected by the agency, the Brazilian economy added 408,000 formal jobs in 2012.