“The unemployment rate in Portugal is unknown, because statistics revealed good results (29 July), but it is not, it is worse,” said Rui Rio.

According to Rui Rio, the figures known about unemployment in Portugal refer to “registered unemployment, but this does not reflect reality”.

"We have a lot of companies and thousands of workers on 'lay-off', of these workers how many are going to return to work and how many are going to go out of work?" asked the president of the Social Democrats.

Rui Rio also questions the real meaning of the 'lay-off', considering that it may mean “semi-unemployment or no job”, noting “that if there were no companies on 'lay-off' and an unemployment rate of 7 percent, it would be neither good nor bad”.

"Unfortunately, the unemployment rate is a number, a statistic, and if we follow reality, we don't really know what the unemployment rate is right now in Portugal, it is very difficult to estimate", he concluded.