This represents a year-on-year increase of almost 20%, according to ECO's figures. The end of fixed-term contracts is traditionally the main reason for new registrations at employment centres, and this was the case in July. But the weight of layoffs in new unemployment has worsened.

In total, throughout July, 45,348 individuals registered at IEFP centres (in mainland Portugal), of which 6,565 were after being laid off.

In comparison, in the previous month, 5,441 people had registered with the employment centres for this reason. And a year ago, 5,449. In other words, in July there was a chain increase of 20.7% and a year-on-year increase of 18.1% in the number of people who registered with the IEFP following dismissal.

According to ECO's calculations, this was one of the main reasons for the registrations registered in July. Those dismissed accounted for 14.5% of the total number of people registered throughout July, 0.9 percentage points more than in the same month last year.

However, the most frequent reason for registration in July was the end of non-permanent work: 21,934 people arrived at the IEFP for this reason, 13.25% more than a year ago and 34.61% more than in the previous month. Precarious employment thus once again threw more Portuguese people into unemployment in July.

Based on this data, it is possible to see that the end of fixed-term contracts accounted for 48.4% of the registrations recorded throughout July.

Compared to the previous month, there was a 3.4 percentage point increase in the weight of this reason in the total number of new unemployment. There was also an increase in year-on-year terms, but less pronounced (0.8 percentage points).