Brazil Jobless Rate Rises to 6.1% in Q1, Still the Lowest First-Quarter Since 2012

Overview

• IBGE, which released its household labor survey Thursday, put unemployment at 6.1% for the quarter and counted 6.6 million people looking for work.
• The number of people at work held near 102 million but fell by about 1 million from the prior moving quarter, most of them informal jobs, which pushed the informality rate down to 37.3%.
• Average real pay reached a record R$ 3,722 and total wage income hit a record R$ 374.8 billion, helped by fewer lower-paid informal workers and the January increase in the minimum wage.
• Job losses were concentrated in commerce (down 287,000), public administration largely at the municipal level (down 439,000) and domestic services (down 148,000), reflecting the end of holiday contracts and early-year school staffing resets.
• While Pnad covers all types of work, payroll data from Caged showed a March gain of 228,000 formal jobs and about 1.2 million over 12 months, suggesting formal hiring helped keep household incomes supported.