Rio de Janeiro, Dec 18 (IANS/EFE) Brazil's unemployment rate dipped to 5.7 percent last month, the lowest level since March 2002, authorities said.

The jobless total fell 0.4 percent from October and was down significantly from the November 2009 figure of 7.4 percent.

Brazil's official unemployment rate is computed on the basis of the number of jobseekers in the country's six main metropolitan regions: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife and Porto Alegre.

The size of the working population has grown 3.7 percent in those six areas so far this year, according to the latest report of the IBGE statistics institute.

The median unemployment rate for the first 11 months of 2010 was 6.9 percent, compared with 8.2 percent in the same period last year, the IBGE said Friday.

Brazil's economy generated upwards of 2.5 million new jobs in the first 11 months of this year, 7.7 percent more than during all of 2009, the labour ministry said Thursday.

The statistic covers only formal employment with benefits and social security contributions.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's job-creation target for 2010 was 2.5 million net new positions.