The Portuguese labour market continues to demonstrate stability. According to data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the unemployment rate remained at 6.3% in May, the same as the previous month and slightly lower than a year ago. However, the employed population showed growth on an annual basis.

'The unemployment rate stood at 6.3%, consistent with the previous month, but 0.1 percentage points lower than three months ago and the same period last year,' the statistics agency said in a statement released this morning. In May, Portugal had a total of 348.9 thousand unemployed individuals.

On the other hand, the occupancy rate was 64.9% in May, below the 69.5% seen in the previous month, but above the 64.1% recorded a year ago. Portugal thus had 5.2 million people employed in May, 12.6 thousand fewer than in April, but 131.8 thousand more than in the same month of 2024.

With these shifts in employment and unemployment, the active population reached nearly 5.6 million in May. This marks a 0.2% decrease compared to the previous quarter, but a 2.5% increase year-on-year.

The inactive population grew by 0.9% from April but declined by 0.9% compared to May 2024, totalling almost 2.5 million people.