Unemployment in Paraíba, in 2024, was the lowest since 2014, says IBGE

The annual unemployment rate in Paraíba in 2014 was the lowest since 2014, according to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) Quarterly, published this Friday (14) by IBGE. Last year, the unemployment rate was 8.3%, while in 2014 it was 8.1%, the lowest rate reached in the historical series.

The institute had already announced on the 31st that the country ended last year with the lowest average unemployment rate (6.6%) since the beginning of the historical series, in 2012. Now, it brought the breakdown by state.

In the entire series, the peak of unemployment was reached in the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020, when the rate in Paraíba was 17.8%. However, since 2017, the unemployment rate has continued to increase steadily.

After the pandemic, the unemployment rate in Paraíba began to decrease, going from 17.8% in 2020 to 16.1% in 2021, 12.4% in 2022, 9.6% in 2023 and 8.3% in 2024.

Following the international standard, the IBGE classifies as unemployed people who do not work, but who are actively looking for an opportunity.

Those who are not looking for work are calculated in another index, “people outside the workforce”, which has also been falling in recent years, after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Occupancy level

Across Brazil, employed people account for 58.6% of the population aged 14 or over — a percentage called the “employment level,” which was also the highest in the historical series.

In the breakdown by state, the highest percentages for this indicator were presented by Mato Grosso (68.4%), Santa Catarina (67.0%) and Goiás (65.3%) and the lowest, by Maranhão (47.3%), Acre and Ceará (both with 48.7%) and Alagoas (48.8%).

In relation to informal work, Paraíba has the seventh highest percentage in the country, above 50%.

Furthermore, Paraíba also occupies seventh place in the ranking of "wasted" workforce, with a rate of 24.3%.