The unemployment rate was 6.0% in 2022, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous year, and was 6.5% in the fourth quarter, according to data released this Monday by the Instituto National Institute of Statistics ( INE).
“[Em 2022] the unemployment rate was 6.0% and the underemployment rate was 11.4%, both down from 2021 (0.6 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points, respectively),” says the INE, which today released fourth-quarter employment data and for the whole year 2022.
Among young people (16 to 24 years old), the unemployment rate was 19.0%, 4.4 percentage points lower than the previous year.
Last year, the annual average of the working population was 4,908.7 thousand people, an increase of 2.0% compared to 2021.
The unemployed population, estimated at 313.9 thousand people, fell by 7.3% (24.9 thousand) from the previous year, but the proportion of long-term unemployed was estimated at 45.2%, up 1.8 percentage points compared to 2021, with 63.7% of the long-term unemployed having been in this situation for 24 months or more.
The decreases in the following population groups mainly contributed to the annual change in the unemployed population: men (17.2 thousand; 10.6%); people aged 16 to 24 (12.3 thousand; 16.0%); with higher education (13 300; 14.4%) or secondary or post-secondary education (12 700; 10.2%); looking for a new job (25.4 thousand; 8.6%); and less than 12 months unemployed (19.8 thousand; 10.3%).
In 2022, the unemployment rate in the autonomous region of the Azores was equal to the national average (6.0%), while the rates in the metropolitan area of Lisbon (7.2%) and in the autonomous region of Madeira (7.0% ) were above that threshold and the rates in the North region (5.9%), Algarve (5.7%), Center (5.1%) and Alentejo (4.8%) below it.
Compared to 2021, the unemployment rate has only increased in Área Metropolitana de Lisboa (0.4 percentage points), after a decrease in the other six regions of the country, of which the decrease in the Algarve (2.5 percentage points) is notable. .
Compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate was estimated at 6.5%, reflecting an increase of 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter and 0.2 percentage points from the fourth quarter of the previous year.
In October, November and December of last year, the working population (4,902.9 thousand people) decreased by 0.5% (26.2 thousand) compared to the previous quarter and increased by 0.5% (23.9 thousand) compared to the same quarter.
The unemployed population, estimated at 342.7 thousand people, increased by 12.1% (36.9 thousand) compared to the previous quarter and by 3.7% (12.1 thousand) compared to the same period of 2020.
In the last three months of the year, the underutilization of work — which aggregates the unemployed population, the underemployment of part-time workers, the inactive who are looking for a job but not available and the inactive who are available but not looking to a job — included 633.1 thousand people, an increase of 5.0% (30.0 thousand) from the previous quarter and 0.5% (3.0 thousand) from the same quarter of the previous year.
Underutilization of work, estimated at 11.7%, is up 0.5 percentage point from the previous quarter and is unchanged from the same period last year.
Finally, the inactive population aged 16 and over (3,571.9 thousand people) decreased by 0.1% (3.5 thousand) compared to the previous quarter and by 1.1% (40.2 thousand) compared to the same period last year.
Source: DN
