The end of June unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, 'the lowest since September 2002,' according to the confirmed figure from the National Statistics Institute.
"The unemployment rate for June 2018, at 6.8% was down 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, down 0.7 percentage points from three months earlier and down 2.3 percentage points from June 2017," explained the Institute, with trademark brevity.
The confirmed figure “was an upward revision of 0.1 percentage points on the provisional estimate released a month ago," droned the Institute.
Whatever the style of delivery form the independent Institute, the government will be delighted at this consistent fall in unemployment figures, so much so that the Prime Minister has launched a ‘come back to Portugal’ campaign and is to offer a 50% income tax reduction to returning emigrants whom he expects to mop up the remaining jobs, mainly at the lower end of the pay scale.
This ‘lead zeppelin’ policy already has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, mainly as it prejudices those that stayed in Portugal and will create a two tier tax system which many claim is unconstitutional despite precedents found in the Non Habitual Residents and Golden Visa programmes.
