The Ministry of Labour revealed that the balance of Social Security increased by 36% at the end of July compared to the same period last year.

At the end of June, the balance registered a year-on-year increase of 16%.

"Social Security continues to make a positive contribution to the reduction of the budget deficit and to the consolidation of public accounts," said Vieira da Silva, social security minister, noting the year-on-year revenue growth of 8% in the first seven months of the year.

The increase in revenue is "strongly driven by the growth in contributions, which recorded a variation of 8.7%, equivalent to an additional €826.6 million".

"This accumulated growth of 8.7% in contributions is 1.7% higher than the accumulated growth recorded in the same period of the previous year (7.0%) and also the highest growth recorded in the last 18 years, since July 2001, which reflects the continued fall in unemployment, the increase in employment and wages and the dynamism of the labour market," the Minister also pointed out.

On the expenditure side, in the first seven months of this year there was an increase of 5.6% compared to the same period in 2018.

The increase in pension expenditure of €510.9 million (up 5.5% year-on-year) to €9,856.1 billion euros contributed to this growth.

This figure reflects the update in pensions - up to €six and €10 with effect from January 2019 while in 2018 this measure was only applied from August.

Other items that influenced expenditure were social inclusion benefits, which increased by 31.4% (plus €45.2 million) to €189.1 million.

With regard to unemployment protection benefits, budget execution data indicate that expenditure contracted by 5.5% (minus €41.3 million) compared to the same period last year, to €704.4 million.

In July 2019, the number of beneficiaries of unemployment benefit was down by 5.4% compared to the same month last year.

According to Social Security statistics, in July there were 159,143 receiving unemployment benefit.