Brazilian unemployment lowest for a decade.

Encouraging Brazilian news this week. According to IBGE, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, unemployment in Brazil has now fallen to its lowest level for ten years. The December figure was 4.7 percent, down half a point from the preceding month. This was an even better result than the 4.9% figure expected by a panel of economists consulted by the news agency Reuters.

The average rate for the whole year of 2011 was six per cent exactly, a figure that was well within the most optimistic expectatations.

After all, for the period 2001 to 2010 the average rate for the country was very nearly 10 %, although this statistic did mask a few large fluctuations (hence of course the description ‘average’).

It’s important to understand that in Brazil the unemployment figures are percentages of the so-called ‘working population’, not the whole national citizenry. This former term is defined as all those people in work plus those who are not in employment but who are actively seeking it, and identified as such.

However, IBGE comments that, while encouraging, the latest percentages indicate there still is further improvement to be made. Also, a cause for concern is the fluctuation in the numbers of people actually employed as distinct from unemployed.

As a contrast, though, the average monthly wage of employed Brazilians is apparently at the record level of R$ 1,650.

All this is positive news for the growing middle classes and the take-up market for such schemes as the affordable-housing programme ‘Minha Casa Minha Vida’.