Portugal's unemployment rate rose to 7.2% in the first quarter from 6.5% in the preceding three months and from 5.9% a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute said on Wednesday.

Still, the youth unemployment rate - encompassing those between the ages of 16 and 24 - dipped to 19.6% from 19.9% in the previous quarter and was below 20.6% registered a year earlier.

The total number of those unemployed rose 11% to 380,300 people from the previous three months as more people entered the jobs market.

The total workforce rose 1.1% from the previous quarter to 5.3 million people.

(Reporting by Maria Luiza Amaral and João Manuel Maurício, editing by Andrei Khalip)