The unemployment rate in Brazil fell to 8.9% of the economically active population in the quarter ended in August, which fell to its lowest level in the last seven years, the government said Friday.

The unemployment rate in Latin America’s largest economy was not that low since the 8.7% measured in the quarter ended July 2015, according to data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

From then on, the rate did not fall below two digits and reached a record 14.9% in September 2020, then affected by the economic crisis generated by the pandemic.

After the new recession of 2020, when the economy fell by 3.9% due to the pandemic, the country’s recovery in 2021, with growth of 4.6%, allowed Brazil to begin to generate employment again.

The 8.9% measured in the quarter ending in August is 0.9 percentage points lower than the immediately previous quarter (9.8%) and 3.2 points lower than the same period in 2021.

According to the IBGE, with the reaction of the labor market, the number of unemployed in Brazil in August was 9.7 million, the lowest since November 2015, with a fall of 2% compared to the previous quarter (9.9 million) and 30.1% in comparison with the same period last year (13.9 million).

Similarly, the number of employed people rose in August to a record 99 million, compared to 91.7 million in the same period last year.

Despite this improvement, the number of informal workers in August was 39.3 million and the number of those working without job guarantees in the private sector reached a record 13.2 million.

That didn’t stop the informality rate from falling from 40.6% in August 2021 to 39.1% last month.

The reduction of unemployment is one of the main campaign flags of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who aspires to be re-elected on Sunday and who is fighting to reduce the distance that separates him in the polls from former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, favorite with the 48% of the intention to vote.