After three months of consecutive increases, the unemployment rate in Portugal fell to 6.8% in February. Compared to January, there was a drop of 0.2 percentage points (p.p.). In the second month of the year, there were 359,600 unemployed in the country (a decrease of 2.3% compared to the previous month), according to the data on the monthly estimates of employment and unemployment for February released by the Instituto National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The unemployment rate of 6.8% in February compares with 7.1% in January, 6.8% in December, 6.5% in November and 6% in October, the month in which it had stabilized compared to September. In year-on-year terms, there was an increase of 1.2 p.p., with over 67.4 thousand people unemployed.

The employment rate, in turn, increased by 0.3 p.p., standing at 64%. The value compares with the 63.7% registered in January, 63.6% in December and also November, and with the 63.8% calculated in October. In February, 4,923.5 thousand people were employed.

In demographic terms, in February, the unemployment rate was more problematic among young people aged 16 to 24 (19.2%), compared to the rate of adults (from 25 to 74 years), which stood at 6.2% . Also more pronounced among women (7.4%) than among men (6.8%). Thus, last month, there were 71,300 young people and 304,600 adults unemployed, of which 179,700 were men and 196,200 were women.