At last, researchers have come up with accurate unemployment figures, not the sanitised ones used by government.According to researchers from Lisbon University, at the depth of the economic crisis in the first quarter of 2013, actual unemployment reached 28.1%, well above the 17.5% supplied to media and government by the National Institute of Statistics.
The team from the Centre for Research and Sociology Studies, state that all statistical have flaws, because all variables can never be accounted for with accuracy.
The team from the Centre for Research and Sociology Studies, state that all statistical have flaws, because all variables can never be accounted for with accuracy.
The December unemployment figures, as published by the Institute this week, is a good example as the official figures strip out various categories of unemployed including those who have simply given up looking due to a bleak job market.
Instead of the 8.5% unemployment figure at the end of the third quarter last year, according to INE figures, the real unemployment rate was 17.5%, according to calculations made by Frederico Cantante and Renato Miguel do Carmo, from the research centre.
“During the crisis, the real unemployment situation was masked by a change in the statistical criteria. This led to the exclusion of official statistics from various hidden social realities," says Renato Miguel do Carmo, one of the contributors to, "Social Inequalities - Portugal and Europe," which will be launched in book form on March 7th, to the embarrassment of the Institute and the government.
For the total unemployed figure, the researchers added the discouraged (who have given up looking for a job), the underemployed (who can only find part-time work), the unavailable (who are sick or have a dependent relative) and those on a training scheme.
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