In the first quarter of this year, unemployment figures recorded their biggest increase since the worst of the pandemic (the first quarter of 2021) and the number of job vacancies followed the fall.
According to the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP), March saw 6% more unemployed people than the same month in 2023 - that's 18,459 more cases. In all, at the end of the first quarter, there were 324,616 registered unemployed people, according to the DN/ Money alive survey.
In addition, more than a third of the unemployed do not receive any kind of support for their unemployment situation.
In addition, more than a third of the unemployed do not receive any kind of support for their unemployment situation.
Job vacancies are also facing a sharp downturn, driven by high interest rates that are preventing companies from expanding and even maintaining their businesses. In this first quarter, compared to the same period last year, job vacancies fell by 27.1%.
Only in 2020 was there a greater reduction in job offers.
The northern region, with half of the 19,100 registered cases of unemployment, is the most affected, but it is in the Algarve (up 14%) that the biggest year-on-year increase was registered.
The real estate, accommodation, catering, leather and footwear sectors are where unemployment rose the most. Only in banking and insurance did unemployment not rise: in fact, it increased, with 36 more people employed in the sector.
