Brazils jobless rate rises to 8.6% in quarter through February

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazils jobless rate rose to 8.6% in the three months through February, statistics agency IBGE said on Friday, slightly below market expectations of 8.7%.

The data showed a 0.5% growth in unemployment compared with the three previous months, IBGE said.

The increase comes after six consecutive quarters of significant drops, said the survey manager Adriana Beringuy, in a movement that may signal a return to the characteristic seasonality of the labor market.

“If we look retrospectively at the historical series of the survey, all the quarters ending in February are marked by the expansion of unemployment, with the exception of 2022,” she said in a statement.

The number of unemployed people in the country grew 5.5% to 9.2 million people, which represents an increase of 483,000 people looking for a job. The number of employed Brazilians fell 1.6% from the previous quarter to 98.1 million.

(Reporting by Peter Frontini)