Rio, 4/27/2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - According to the government statistical bureau (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) (IBGE), unemployment rose slightly, 0.8 percentage points, in March to 12.8% (up from 12% in February). It was also up 0.7 percentage points over March 2003 (when unemployment was 12.1%).

The Monthly Employment report showed that 2.7 million people were unemployed in the metropolitan regions of Recife, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Porto Alegre, an increase of 203,000 over February. The survey also shows a clear tendency: nowadays the majority of the unemployed are female. In March 2002, 52.3% of the unemployed were female, 54.8% in March 2003, rising to 56.4% this March.

The survey found that 20% of the unemployed were seeking their first job. Out of the unemployed 26.3% were family breadwinners. Fully 47% of the unemployed were youths of less than 24 years of age.

The survey also found that 18% of the unemployed had been looking for work for no more than 30 days; 49.7% had been looking for work for more than 31 days and less than 180 days; and 7.9% had been looking for work for more than 7 months.

Translator: Allen Bennett