5.3%. That was Brazil's unemployment rate in the quarter ending in August, the lowest for that period since 2012, when the statistics agency IBGE began its current series. In plain terms, of every 100 people looking for work, about five were still without a job. The figures come from the Pnad Continua household survey, released on Tuesday (29), five days before the first round of the general election.
The rate fell from 5.6% both compared with the quarter through May and with the same period in 2025. The number of unemployed dropped to 5.8 million, meaning 281,000 people left the jobless line in three months. The employed population reached 103.5 million, the highest on record, up 774,000 workers, driven by industry and construction.
How the rate is calculated
Pnad Continua is the IBGE survey that visits 211,000 households across Brazil to measure the labor market. Only people who actively looked for a job in the 30 days before the interview count as unemployed. Those who gave up searching because they believe no work is available are classified as discouraged and sit outside the rate, a group that now totals 2.4 million people.
The average worker's income was R$ 3,777 per month (roughly US$ 730), flat in the quarter but up 3.7% in real terms over a year, meaning above inflation. The total wage bill, the sum of all salaries paid in the country and a gauge of money available for spending and bills, hit a record R$ 385.6 billion. Private-sector workers with signed labor cards, Brazil's formal employment registry, also reached a record 39.5 million, and pension contributors hit 68.5 million.
Not everything improved. Informality rose from 37.3% to 37.5% in the quarter, or 38.8 million workers without a formal contract, with no right to unemployment insurance, paid vacation or the year-end bonus known as the 13th salary. And the current rate remains above the series floor of 5.1%, set in the last quarter of 2025. At the worst point of the pandemic, unemployment reached 14.9%.
According to the Finance Ministry's Economic Policy Secretariat, the result came in line with analyst expectations, and the median forecast in a Reuters poll was exactly 5.3%. The numbers land in the final stretch of a presidential campaign in which President Lula seeks reelection against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, with the economy and the cost of living at the center of the debate. The first round is on Sunday (4).