The January 2018 unemployment rate was 7.9%, down by 0.1 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous month’s level, by 0.5 p.p. from three months before and by 2.2% from the same month of 2017. That value corresponds to a null revision from the provisional estimate released one month ago and only going back to July 2004 it is possible to find a rate lower than that.
Statistics Portugal estimates that the January unemployed population was 409.4 thousand people, having decreased by 0.7% from the previous month’s level (3.0 thousand fewer people). The employed population estimate was 4,777.8 thousand people, having increased by 0.1% (6.4 thousand more people) from the previous month’s level.
The provisional unemployment rate estimate for February 2018 was 7.8%. For this month, the provisional estimate for the unemployed population was 406.8 thousand people and that for the employed population was 4,775.4 thousand people.