Brazil’s unemployment rate for the quarter ending in February reached 5.8 percent, higher than the moving average for the quarter ending in November, when it stood at 5.2 percent.

Despite the increase, the result is the lowest for a quarter ending in February since 2012, when the time series of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) began. In the same quarter of 2025, the rate was 6.8 percent.

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In the quarter ending in February, Brazil had 102.1 million people in employment and 6.2 million looking for work.

The data were released on Friday (Mar. 27) by the statistics bureau IBGE.

Criteria

The IBGE survey tracks labor market trends for people aged 14 and older and takes into account all forms of employment – including formal, temporary, and self-employment, for example. 

According to the institute’s criteria, only those who actively sought a job 30 days prior to the survey are considered unemployed. The survey visits 211 thousand households across all Brazilian states and the Federal District.

The highest unemployment rate ever recorded in the series that began in 2012 was 14.9 percent, reached in two periods – in the rolling quarters ending in September 2020 and March 2021, both during the COVID-19 pandemic.