Brazil's Unemployment Jumps in 2015, Adding to Rousseff's Woes

Brazil’s national unemployment rate in 2015 rose to its highest since the data series began three years earlier, piling pressure on President Dilma Rousseff who was a prime target in one of the nation’s largest protests ever on Sunday.

The unemployment rate in 2015 averaged 8.5 percent, up from 6.8 percent the prior year, according to data released by the national statistics institute in Rio de Janeiro. In the fourth quarter, the jobless rate was 9 percent, up from 8.9 percent the prior quarter yet below a median estimate of 9.1 percent from 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.