The total volume of the employed population rose to highs of at least 13 years, but the unemployment rate rose for the second consecutive quarter.
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It has been at least 13 years since there were so many people working in Portugal: employment figures rose, in the first quarter of 2024, to a new high since the current statistical series began in 2011. total volume of employed population it once again surpassed the five million threshold, rising to 5,019,000, according to data now published by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
According to INE, men, people between 25 and 34 years old and those with secondary or post-secondary education were the groups that most contributed to this increase.
The increase in employment in this quarter of the year occurred both among salaried workers (23,200 people, +0.5%), and among the group of self-employed workers (15,900 people, +2.3%), placing 720,000 professionals.
According to the analysis of the numbers carried out by Randstad Portugal, employment increased in all major sectors, but the industrial sector presented the best performance in quarterly and interannual terms, with an increase to +22,200 people. The analysis also highlights the increases seen in consultancy, scientific, technical and similar activities (+14,600 people) and in education (+12,800 people).
Unemployment rate rises again
This increase in the volume of the employed population occurs despite a slight increase in unemployment rate, which increased to 6.8% in the first three months of this year, compared to 6.6% in the last quarter of 2023. This was the second consecutive quarter of an increase in the unemployment rate. The number of people without a job increased by 3.8% compared to the end of 2023, but decreased by 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year.
Another positive point of the new INE report is the drop in long and very long term unemployment. Of the total unemployed population, around a third (33.5%) has been in this situation for at least 12 months, which means a drop of three percentage points compared to the numbers from the last quarter of 2023. Of these, more than half (55.4%) have been out of work for at least two years, which also represents a decrease, both in relation to the previous quarter and in relation to the same period in 2023. These values mean that the long-term unemployment rate is now almost 5 times lower than 10 years ago.
On the negative side, the increase in the numbers of underutilization of laborwhich includes people working part-time who are looking for more working hours, inactive people available to work but who did not actively look for a job during the period in question, and inactive people who are looking for a job without being immediately available to accept an offer.
People in this situation totaled just over 646 thousand, having increased by 1.5% compared to the previous quarter, but with a decrease of 5% compared to the first three months of last year.
Teleworking increases
The numbers also show more people working from home, a phenomenon that gained strength with the 2020-2021 pandemic and took hold in Portuguese society.
According to this report, around a fifth (20.5%) of the employed population has the possibility of doing some type of teleworking, with this share rising 16.2% compared to the previous quarter. It is in Greater Lisbon that the largest share (around a third) of workers with the possibility of teleworking are located.
