The number of workers who had been looking for a job for two years or more fell by 17.8% in the third quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Furthermore, the number of those seeking employment for more than a month and less than a year is the lowest ever recorded since 2012.
The record low in the number of unemployed also applies to those looking for a job for a period ranging from one to two years.
The data is part of the Continuous Quarterly National Household Sample Survey (Pnad), released this Friday (14) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
The survey also shows that the number of Brazilians who have been looking for work for less than a month fell 14.2% compared to the third quarter of 2024.
Thus, all search time ranges showed a reduction in the number of unemployed people. The observation takes place in a scenario in which the country reached the unemployment rate of 5.6%, the lowest ever recorded in the historical series of the survey, which began in 2012, as announced at the end of October.
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The search
Pnad investigates behavior in the labor market for people aged 14 or over and takes into account all forms of occupation, whether with or without a formal contract, temporary and self-employed, for example. According to the institute’s criteria, only a person who actually looked for a vacancy 30 days before the search is considered unemployed. 211 thousand homes are visited in all states and the Federal District.
The IBGE survey detailed the number of unemployed people in four search time bands:
– Less than a month: 1.1 million people, a reduction of 14.2% in the annual comparison. Less contingent since the third quarter of 2015.
– One month less than a year: 3 million unemployed, a reduction of 12.2% and the smallest number ever recorded.
– One in less than two years: 666 thousand people, a reduction of 11.1% and the lowest number ever recorded.
– Two years or more: 1.2 million people, a reduction of 17.8% and the lowest number since 2014.
In the third quarter of 2025, Brazil had half of the unemployed (50.8%) in the range of one month to less than a year of search. At the extreme of the temporal segmentation, 19.5% of unemployed people had been looking for a job for two years or more, the lowest percentage since 2015.
Check out information about the research on Repórter Brasil Tarde, from TV Brasil
