The Employment and Vocational Training Institute (IEFP) has just released the unemployment figures for the month of July. According to them, there are 5,582 unemployed in the Azores, of whom 3,223 are men and 2,359 are women, representing 1% of national unemployment, though the Region represents 2.5% of the national population.
The released data also demonstrate a reduction in the number of unemployed in the Azores; there are less 1,168 unemployed in the Azores since January 2010, thus confirming the downward trend already registered by the National Statistics Institute.
Despite the difficulties faced by world and national economies at the present moment, this figure has dropped 2.1% compared to the previous month. However, the unemployment rate has increased 27% compared with July last year.
The number of registered unemployed is, nevertheless, 20.6% lower than the number of unemployed in July 1996 (7,031 unemployed), 10% lower than July 1995 (6,296 unemployed) and 10.8% lower than July 1994 (6,256 unemployed), which had increased 48.9%.