Brazil’s unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in the quarter from June to August 2026, down 0.3 percentage points on both the previous quarter and the same period of 2025, according to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
The number of unemployed people fell to around 5.8 million, 281,000 fewer than in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the employed population rose to around 103.5 million people, up 774,000 in three months and 1.06 million in a year.
Average real income from work stood at 3,777 reais a month, 3.7% higher than a year earlier, and total income grew by 4.8% year on year.
Construction and industry led job creation in the quarter, with increases of 4.1% and 2.0% respectively. The number of discouraged workers, who have given up looking for work, fell by 11.9% in a year, to around 2.4 million.
