Nielmar de Oliveira
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Rio - The country's unemployment rate went back on the rise and closed the month of January at 10.2%, 0.6% higher than in December, 2004. Compared with January, 2004, however, the rate is down 1.5%.

These data from the Monthly Employment Survey were released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which attributed the fall in employment to the fact that the period of holiday contracts had ended. That is why January is usually a month of decreasing employment.

Compared with January, 2004, however, the number of employees with formal jobs was up 3.9% and the number with informal jobs, 8.1%.

At the state level, in comparison with December, 2004, the only metropolitan area in which the unemployment rate declined was Rio de Janeiro (from 8.5% to 7.4%). In Belo Horizonte the rate rose from 8.5% to 9.8%, and in São Paulo, from 9.8% to 11.1%. In the rest of the country unemployment remained stable.

Translation: David Silberstein