The Brazil government said on Friday that the country’s unemployment rate has hit a record 14.6% as the pandemic slammed Latin America’s largest economy, reported AFP. 

The figure for the period of July-September marked the third straight record for joblessness in Brazil. 

According to Brazilian statistics institute IBGE,  14.1 million workers were seeking jobs while another 5.9 million have given up looking for work, which is again a record and a worrying sign for the economy.

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Andre Perfeito, of the consultancy Necton said that the large number of people who have dropped out of the work force “hides the very fragile reality of the labor market.”

He said, “If participation in the labor force were the same as last year, the unemployment rate would be 24.12%.”

Due to a lack of full-time options, the rate of people working part-time has risen by 24% in a year, to 30.3%. The unemployment rate was up from 11.8 percent during the same quarter last year and 14.4 percent for the June-August period in 2020.

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Unemployment numbers are reported by the government  for rolling three-month periods and the latest numbers is the highest since that system was introduced in 2012.

With 212 million people, Brazil entered a recession in the second quarter of the year with a record economic contraction of 9.7%.

Although the economy is expected to show a recovery when gross domestic product figures for the third quarter are released next week, the government is still forecasting a contraction of 4.5% for the year.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 170,000 people in the country, the second-highest death toll worldwide, after the United States.