Brazil unemployment falls to seven-year low

Brazil’s unemployment rate fell to 10.5 percent in the three months from February to April, the lowest for the period since 2015.

The figure, a 0.7 percentage point drop from the three months to January, was lower than expected, which is good news for Latin America’s largest economy, which has been struggling with slow growth and high inflation.

Analysts polled by business daily Valor had forecast the rate would be 10.9 percent for the sliding three-month period.

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Despite the improvement, there are still 11.3 million jobless workers in the country of 213 million people.

And 40 percent of those who have jobs are employed in the low-paying informal sector.

Brazilians have been hurting from sharp price increases. The annual rate currently stands at 12.13 percent, far above the central bank’s target of 3.5 percent.

The economy has turned into a liability for far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who is up for reelection in October.

According to a recent Datafolha institute poll, 54 percent of Brazilians believe the country’s economic situation will have a significant impact on their vote.

According to the same poll, Bolsonaro is trailing leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who received 27 percent of the vote to the long-standing front-48 runner’s percent.

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