Overview
- Brazil recorded 6.0 million unemployed people in Q3 2025, down 3.3% from Q2 and 11.8% from a year earlier, the smallest contingent since the series began in 2012.
- Youth unemployment for ages 18–24 ticked up to 12.3%, with the number of young unemployed edging to 1.797 million, while unemployed counts fell among people 25–39 and 40–59.
- Sixteen of 27 states saw quarter-on-quarter declines, but only Rio de Janeiro and Tocantins posted statistically significant drops, with most other changes within the survey’s margin of error.
- Pernambuco had the highest state unemployment rate at 10.0%, followed by Amapá (8.7%) and Bahia (8.5%), while Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso were lowest at 2.3%, with Rondônia at 2.6%.
- Job-search durations fell across all ranges versus Q3 2024, reaching third-quarter lows in key bands, and unemployment remained higher for women (6.9%) and Black Brazilians (6.9%) than for men (4.5%) and whites (4.4%).