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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's unemployment rate finished 2016 at an average of 11.5 percent with a marked rise from the 8.5 percent average for 2015, the government confirmed on Tuesday.
Data from the state-owned Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed that 11.8 million people had no work last year, a 37 percent rise on the 8.6 million unemployed in 2015.
The current data is even worse since, in the fourth quarter, the unemployment rate reached 12 percent, up from 9 percent the year before.
The population in work in the last quarter was around 90.3 million, 0.5 percent up over the third quarter, one of the only positive notes in the report. Still, this was 2.1 percent down year-on-year.
Due to shrinking opportunities, Brazilian companies cut 1.32 million formal jobs last year, according to the data.
