Employment resilience persisted with upbeat sequential growth taking the unemployment rate in June to one-digit terrain. The national unemployment rate reached 9.3%, 1.9pp down over one year, while the urban unemployment rate came in at 8.8% in June (-2.9pp over one year), well below the Bloomberg market consensus and our call of 11.5%. Total employment expanded 4.7% yoy in June (1.7% previously), while the labor force rose 2.5% (1.5% in May). At the margin, total employment expanded 1.4% MoM/SA from May, and rose 1.7% from 1Q to 2Q23. As a result, the 2Q23 unemployment rate was 10.2% (-0.8pp yoy), and falling 20bps (SA) from 1Q23.
Private salaried jobs continued to drive employment dynamics. During 2Q23, employment increased 3.3% yoy (3.8% in 1Q), pulled up by private salaried posts (6.2% yoy; 6.2% in 1Q23). Self-employment increased 1.8% (+2.0 in 1Q), while public sector Jobs decrease 1.8 yoy (0.1% drop in 1Q).
We expect the average unemployment rate to reach 11.5% this year (11.2% in 2022; 10.9% in 2019), but recent dynamics of resilient employment growth put a downside bias to our call. A restrictive monetary policy and still high inflation should lead to some labor market loosening ahead.