Portugal’s unemployment rate fell to 5.5% in May, down from 5.7% in April and 0.7 points lower than a year ago, according to provisional data from the National Statistics Institute (INE). 

The labour underutilization rate also decreased to 9.4%, showing improvements both compared to previous months and to May last year.

These figures highlight continued positive momentum in the Portuguese labour market. In May, the unemployment rate stood at 5.5%, lower than in April (0.2 p.p.), February (0.5 p.p.), and May 2025 (0.7 p.p.), according to INE.

Meanwhile, the labour underutilization rate was estimated at 9.4%, lower than in the previous month (0.3 p.p.), three months earlier (0.5 p.p.) and the same month of the previous year (1.0 p.p.).