The unemployment rate in the six main metropolitan areas analyzed by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) rose in January to 7.6%, the highest for the month of January from the 8.2% from January 2009.

Data from the Monthly Employment Survey were released today (25) and indicate that the increase in relation to December of last year (6.9%) is 0.7 percentage point to 2.3 percentage points compared to January 2015 (5.3%).

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the unemployed population in January was 1.9 million people, up 8.4% (over 146,000 people) compared to last December and 42.7% compared to January 2015 (over 562 000 people seeking work).