Brazil's Temer says not responsible for high jobless rate

Brazilian President Michel Temer said on Friday that he is not to blame for the country's rising unemployment rate.

In an event with businessmen, the president tried to explain the severe economic crisis Brazil is facing, with rising inflation and unemployment.

Brazil's jobless rate has reached 11.8 percent in August, and there are 12 million unemployed people in the country, according to a report released by statistics agency IBGE earlier in the day.

Temer said the current situation is not his fault because he has only been in power for a very short period of time.

"We received the government with a rising inflation rate. We reached almost 12 million unemployed people, and I reiterate this was not my fault. The state got way more indebted than it was capable of, and by doing so, generated recession and unemployment," he said.

Temer first took over in May, when then-President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office to be submitted to an impeachment process. On August 31, Rousseff was impeached and Temer took over officially for the rest of Rousseff's term, which ends in December 2018.

Temer, who was previously vice president, is the head of the largest party in the country, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), which held, in the final year of the Rousseff administration, seven ministries in the cabinet, including positions responsible for the economy. Endi