UPDATE 1-Brazil's jobless rate ticks up but labor market remains strong
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SAO PAULO, March 28 (Reuters) - Brazil's jobless rate ticked up in the three months through February but the labor market in Latin America's largest economy remains resilient, with unemployment still close to its lowest levels since 2015, official data showed on Thursday.
Policymakers at Brazil's central bank have been closely monitoring the local job market on concerns its strength could translate into higher inflation and hinder an ongoing monetary easing cycle.
Brazil's unemployment rate reached 7.8% in the December-February period, statistics agency IBGE said, in line with market expectations in a Reuters poll but up from 7.6% in the previous rolling quarter.
The uptick resulted from more people actively looking for a job, IBGE said, with 8.53 million people currently unemployed. The latest jobless figure represents the highest since August of last year, but still the lowest for the period since 2015.
Brazil's job market has been proving resilient since last year, and the jobless rate tends to increase early in the year due to seasonal factors.
"The reading shows a still resilient job market, and rising income reflects that," Highpar economist Maykon Douglas said. "The central bank will continue to keep an eye on it as it has a direct effect on services inflation."
Average wages rose 1.1% in the quarter to 3,110 reais ($622.64), according to IBGE.
The latest data couples with figures that earlier this week showed Brazil's economy created more
formal jobs
than expected in February, after also
overshooting expectations
in January.
Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Wednesday he hopes the central bank will not be frightened by recent job data and keep lowering interest rates, which have already been cut by a total 300 basis points since August to 10.75%.
Brazil's unemployment rate continues to show "steady improvement," Pantheon Macroeconomics' chief Latin America economist Andres Abadia said, and "leading indicators point to a relatively good performance in the second quarter."
($1 = 4.9949 reais) (Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
