The Diplomat
Unemployment fell by 127,100 people in the third quarter of the year, which is 3.6 per cent less than in the previous quarter, thus recording its largest decline in a third quarter since 2018, when unemployment fell by 164,100 people, according to data from the Labour Force Survey (EPA) released yesterday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
At the end of September, the total number of unemployed stood at 3,416,700 people. The unemployment rate fell by almost seven tenths of a percentage point to 14.57%, its lowest figure since the first quarter of 2020 (14.41%), which means that it is now at pre-Covid levels.
The data indicate that employment exceeded the figure of 20 million workers for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2008 after 359,300 jobs were created in the summer months, 1.8% more than in the previous quarter. The increase in employment between July and September was mainly concentrated in the services sector.
The number of households with all their members unemployed fell by 35,800 in the third quarter of the year, 3.1% compared with the previous quarter, to 1,122,100, its lowest figure since the first quarter of 2020.