RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Brazil lacks 27.6 million jobs and long-term unemployment is rising, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said on Thursday.
The rate of underemployment and unemployment among the active population hit 24.6 percent, similar to that of the first quarter. The underemployed population refers to those working less than 40 hours per week.
An IBGE report found that a record 4.8 million people had given up looking for work in the second quarter, 200,000 more than that in the first quarter.
Almost 3.2 million Brazilians have now been searching for work for over two years, accounting for just over a quarter of the country's 12.4 million unemployed people, the report said.
"The probability that a person stops looking for work is related to the time that they have spent unemployed," according to the IBGE.
Since Brazil's economic crisis began in 2014, there has been a 162-percent rise in the number of people searching for work for more than two years.
The report noted that unemployment mostly affects young adults, women and Brazilians of African descent.
Around 67 percent of unemployed Brazilians are aged between 18 and 39, and 14.2 percent of women are unemployed compared with 11 percent of men.
