In the quarter ending in December, Brazil recorded an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent – the lowest ever recorded by the Continuous PNAD (national household sample survey).

Looking at the consolidated data for 2025, the annual unemployment rate stood at 5.6 percent, also the smallest in history. The number of employed people reached 103 million.

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Last year also saw a record in the average monthly income of Brazilian workers, which reached BRL 3,560, up 5.7 percent (or BRL 192) compared to 2024.

The number of formally employed workers in the year was also the highest ever recorded – 38.9 million people, up 1 million from the previous year.

The data were released Friday (Jan. 30) by Brazil’s statistics bureau IBGE.

The survey

The IBGE survey assesses Brazil’s labor market behavior for people aged 14 and over and takes into account all forms of employment – whether formal or informal, temporary or self-employed, for instance.

According to the institute’s criteria, only people who actively sought employment 30 days prior to the survey are considered unemployed. A total of 211 thousand households are visited across all states plus the Federal District.

The highest unemployment rate ever recorded in the time series, which began in 2012, was 14.9 percent, reached in two periods: in the rolling quarters ending in September 2020 and in March 2021 – both during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pressured by high interest rates and a slowing economy, the creation of formal jobs fell in Brazil in 2025. Data released by the General Registry of Employed and Unemployed (Caged), under the Ministry of Labor and Employment, indicate that 1,279,498 formal jobs were created last year.

The indicator measures the difference between hires and layoffs. The balance is 23.73 percent lower than in 2024, when the country created 1,677,575 jobs. The data include adjustments, as the Ministry of Labor registers declarations submitted late by employers and corrects figures from previous months.

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In December alone, a month traditionally marked by layoffs, 618,164 jobs were eliminated, 11.29 percent more than in the same month of 2024. In December of the previous year, 555,430 jobs had been lost.

Sectors

Even with the drop in December, all five sectors surveyed created formal jobs in 2025.

• Services: 758,355 jobs;

• Commerce: 247,097;

• Industry (manufacturing, extraction, and other types): 144,319;

• Construction: 87,878;

• Agriculture: 41,870.

A 2025 report by Brazil’s Ministry of Labor and Employment reveals that 2,772 people were rescued from situations analogous to slavery that year. For the first time, most of the workers – 68 percent – were employed in city centers.

“Contemporary slave labor is not restricted to a specific economic activity. Even though most rescues traditionally happen in rural areas, in 2025 the number of workers rescued in urban areas was higher,” said Shakti Borela, general coordinator of inspection for the eradication of slave labor and human trafficking.

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The construction sector saw the highest number of rescues, with 601 cases in masonry work and another 186 in building construction. Other activities with a high number of rescues were public administration, with 304 cases; coffee cultivation, with 184; and the extraction and crushing of stones and other materials, with 126.

According to the ministry, most of the rescued workers are aged 30 through 39, are male, and have low levels of education. Among those rescued, 83 percent self-identified as black or pardo.

In the view of Dercylete Loureiro, director of the Labor Inspection Department, this profile reveals trajectories marked by historical vulnerabilities, which have exposed this segment of the population to conditions analogous to slavery for decades.

Rights

After the crackdowns, all workers were able to access their legal right to an insurance benefit for rescued workers, paid in three installments equal to one minimum wage, and were referred to social welfare services. Over BRL 9 million was said to have been paid to the victims.

In total, tax auditors carried out 1,594 operations to combat slave-like labor in 2025, which, in addition to rescues, also ensured labor rights for more than 48 thousand workers.