Brazil's unemployment rises to 7.8% in December-February period

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - Brazil's unemployment rate rose to 7.8% during the December-February period, according to data released Thursday by the Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

The figure is a 0.3 percentage point increase from the preceding three-month period when it stood at 7.5% during the September-November span of last year.

During the October-December period of 2023, the unemployment rate fell to 7.4% -- the lowest quarterly reading since the three-month ending in January 2015, according to IBGE.

The latest figure of 7.8% in the December-February period, on the other hand, is a decline of 0.7 percentage points from the same period of the year before.

In the December-February period, the number of the unemployed population stood at 8.5 million.