The economic activity indicator, which reflects the evolution of the economy, increased between January and March, in year-on-year terms, while the economic climate indicator, based on surveys to companies, increased between January and April, INE announced today.
According to the “Síntese Económica de Conjuntura” of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), “the economic activity indicator, which summarizes a set of quantitative indicators that reflect the evolution of the economy, increased, in year-on-year terms, between January and March , more intensely in January, after decreasing in November and December and decelerating significantly in September and October».
In turn, the economic climate indicator, which summarizes questions relating to qualitative surveys of companies, increased between January and April.
«The short-term indicators relating to economic activity from a production perspective, available for March, point to a nominal deceleration in industry and services, as well as a real decrease in industry and an acceleration in construction», details INE.
From the perspective of expenditure, «the economic activity indicator increased less intensely in March, with a decrease in the investment indicator and an acceleration in the private consumption indicator».
According to INE, the industrial producer price index «showed a negative year-on-year rate of change in April (-0,9%), which had not happened since February 2021, after growth of 8,9% and 0,1% in February and March, following the uninterrupted deceleration profile observed since July 2022”.
«The grouping of "energy" was decisive for the reduction of the total index, with rates of -21,5% and -17,9% in March and April, respectively», he details, adding that, excluding the energy component, this index decelerated to 4,7% (8,1% in March).
As for the index relating to consumer goods, it recorded a year-on-year change of 9,9% (11,6% in the previous month), «decelerating for the fifth consecutive month, after reaching the highest value in the series in November (16,2 %)».
In turn, the year-on-year change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) slowed down to 5,7% in April, a rate 1,7 percentage points lower than that observed in the previous month, with the index referring to unprocessed food products decelerating, changing from a year-on-year change of 19,3% in March to 14,2% in April.
On the external side, the implicit prices of exports and imports of goods, in March, recorded variations of 4,8% and -2,2%, respectively (7,1% and 4,4% in February).
According to the INE Employment Survey, in the first quarter of 2023, the unemployment rate was 7,2%, 0,7 percentage points more than in the previous quarter (5,9% in the 1st quarter of 2022) .
The number of unemployed increased by 23,3% year-on-year (year-on-year change of 3,7% in the previous quarter), with the rate of underutilization of work being 0,8 percentage points higher than in the fourth quarter, standing at 12,5 .680,7% and covering 633,1 thousand people (XNUMX thousand in the previous quarter).
Total employment increased by 0,4% compared to the previous quarter and by 0,5% year-on-year (year-on-year change of 0,5% in the 4th quarter), the volume of hours actually worked showed a year-on-year increase of 3,4% (change 4,6% in the previous quarter) and the active population grew by 1,8% year-on-year.
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