Seizing on figures from the National Statistics Institute, Portugal’s Minister of Solidarity, Employment & Social Security, Pedro Mota Soares, said today during a visit to the sunny Algarve that the second quarter unemployment data show that the Portuguese economy is creating more and more jobs.
Soares said the data released today, pointed to an unemployment rate of 13.9% in the second quarter of 2014.
“Firstly, it is a good news for about 90,000 Portuguese who found a job last year. Second, it is good news for Portugal which had an unemployment rate a year ago of 17.7%."
For the innumerate and taking things in easy stages, the minister said that the unemployment rate, "dropped from 17 to 16, from 16 down to 15, from 15 down to 14 and today for the first time, there is an unemployment rate below 14%."
"It is a still high number, but it is much closer to the European average," added the Minister as he paid a visit to Tavira.
The party line Sr Soares claimed that the drop in the unemployment rate "is good news for the Portuguese economy” and claims the drop is the “fruit of the many structural reforms that have been made in recent years,” which has given “the economy, businesses, workers and entrepreneurs a new confidence, new hope and, above all, have been able to create more jobs in Portugal."
Soares said that there had been an increase in population of 0.3% over the previous quarter and that "the labour force grew in Portugal, according to the data that we have. There are more people currently in the labour market, there are more people who are part of our working population and this is critical for our economy to grow," said the minister.
Soares spared a thought for those without jobs, “about 90,000 Portuguese are now working and certainly look to the future with more confidence, but the data released today is equally important to the Portuguese who remain unemployed, they certainly can look at these indicators with a renewed hope and confidence that they too may soon return to the labour market.”
Portugal's largest trade union CGTP rubbished the unemployment figures, saying the actual rate is around 23%, one of the highest in the EU.
The union stated that "youth unemployment remains very high and that most of those unemployed have no access to unemployment benefit." In addition, "thousands of Portuguese leave the country every year" to look for work.
The union called for reform of active employment measures that are being used "to subsidise companies and create thousands of precarious, badly paid jobs," often replacing proper, full-time jobs.
