Brazil recorded, in the quarter ended in December, an unemployment rate of 5.1%, the lowest ever recorded by the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad).
Looking at consolidated data from 2025, the annual unemployment rate was 5.6%, also the lowest ever recorded. The number of employed people reached 103 million.
Last year also registered a record in the worker’s average monthly income, which reached R$3,560, an increase of 5.7% (or R$192) compared to 2024.
The number of registered employees in the year was also the highest ever recorded: 38.9 million people, an increase of 1 million compared to the previous year.
The data was released this Friday (30) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
2025 Highlights
At the annual rate, Brazil registered the following contingents:
- Private sector employees without a formal contract: 13.8 million (down 0.8% compared to 2024);
- Domestic workers: 5.7 million (-4.4%);
- Own account: 26.1 million – the highest ever recorded.
The annual informality rate increased from 39% in 2024 to 38.1% in 2025. According to the research coordinator, Adriana Beringuy, this percentage is a “relevant value”, and reflects the structural characteristic of the Brazilian job market.
“The composition and dynamics of the employed population are still quite dependent on informality, especially due to the large participation of workers in commerce and in even complex service segments”, he assesses.
Pnad
The IBGE survey 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 highest unemployment rate ever recorded in the series starting in 2012 was 14.9%, reached in two periods: in the moving quarters ending in September 2020 and in March 2021, both during the covid-19 pandemic.
Caged
The Pnad is released the day after another labor market behavior indicator, the General Register of Employed and Unemployed Persons (Caged), prepared by the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) and which only monitors the scenario of employees with a formal contract.
According to Caged, December had a negative balance of 618 thousand formal vacancies. However, in the 2025 consolidated, the balance was positive in almost 1.28 million positions with a signed document.
Expanded at 9:35 am
