BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s unemployment rate continued its downward trend in the three months through October, hitting a seven-year low of 8.3 percent, the government said Wednesday, a month before president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva takes office.

The number of jobless workers in Latin America’s biggest economy fell to nine million for the period from August to October, down 0.8 percentage points from the three months prior, according to figures released by the national statistics institute, IBGE.

It was the lowest rate since March-May 2015 – the latest sign of Brazil’s gradual recovery from its economic crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The unemployment rate had reached 14.9 percent in the first quarter of 2021, at the height of the crisis.

The figures come as veteran leftist Lula, who previously led Brazil from 2003-2010, prepares to take over from far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on January 1 after narrowly defeating him in a divisive election last month.

With inflation finally starting to cool – the annual rate came in at 6.47 percent last month – and analysts polled by the central bank predicting GDP growth of 0.7 percent next year, Brazil’s economy looks to be slowly improving.

But it remains far from the commodities-fueled boom that Lula presided over in his first presidency.