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Portugal's unemployment rate falls to 10.1 pct in Q1

Xinhua, May 10, 2017 Adjust font size:

Portugal's unemployment rate tumbled to the lowest rate of 10.1 percent since 2009 in the first quarter of 2017, figures by Portuguese National Statistics Institute showed on Wednesday.

This comes as a reassuring sign for the Socialist party led by Antonio Costa which has been trying to reverse austerity.

The unemployment rate dropped 0.4 percentage points to 10.1 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the previous quarter, the country's statistics institute revealed on Wednesday.

According to the figures, the country's unemployment rate dropped 2.3 percentage points compared to the same period in 2016.

The figures released on Wednesday show the unemployment rate fell to the lowest rate seen since 2009 when the figure also was 10.1 percent.

There were 523,900 people unemployed in the first quarter of 2017, 116,300 less than in the beginning of 2016, translating in an 18.2 percent drop.

Portugal's Socialist party has been reversing austerity measures imposed by the previous administration following a 78 billion euro (84.76 billion U.S. dollars) bailout in 2011.

The Portuguese economy grew 1.2 percent of GDP last year and public debt surpassed 130 percent.

The International Monetary Fund recently raised its growth projections for Portugal in 2017, expecting 1.7 percent growth. Enditem