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Brazil's Jobless Rate Fell to 7% in June, Lowest Level for Month Since '02
Brazil’s unemployment rate fell to the lowest level for the month of June since at least 2002.
Unemployment fell to 7.0 percent in June, the national statistics office said today in Rio de Janeiro. The figure was lower than the median estimate of 7.3 percent among 34 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Unemployment was 7.5 percent in May.
The yield on the interest rate future contract maturing January 2011, the most traded today on Sao Paulo’s BM&F Exchange, fell 12 basis points to 10.86 percent at 8:07 a.m. New York time. The real rose 0.6 percent to 1.7704 per dollar.
The central bank unexpectedly slowed the pace of interest rate increases yesterday after consumer prices fell for the first time in four years, raising the benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to 10.75 percent.
Brazil’s $1.6 trillion economy has shown signs of cooling from its 9 percent annual growth rate in the first quarter. Industrial output and retail sales grew less in May than analysts had forecast, and June tax collection was less than predicted.
Still, the economy is likely to expand at its fastest pace in more than two decades this year, keeping inflation above the government’s 4.5 percent target until the second quarter of 2012, the central bank said in a quarterly report June 30.
Economists surveyed by the central bank raised their inflation forecast for the next 12 months for a third consecutive week to 4.96 percent, a report this week showed.
Consumer price increases have exceeded the government’s target in every month during the first half of the year and are forecast to end 2010 at 5.42 percent before slowing to 4.8 percent by the end of 2011, a central bank survey of about 100 economists published this week showed. Policy makers target 4.5 percent inflation, plus or minus two percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Bristow in Bogota at Mbristow5@bloomberg.net
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