RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Housemaid Barbara Cristina, 40, began 2020 working in three different residences in Rio de Janeiro, with a monthly income close to R$2,000. However, she reaches the end of the year unemployed and with no source of income, relying on her boyfriend’s help to pay her bills.
Cristina’s situation is the same that many domestic workers face after the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. The measures adopted to contain the spread of the disease, such as social distancing and restrictions on the operation of trade and services, have mainly impacted workers in the service sector.
According to Barbara, employers claimed different reasons for dismissal but always linked to the pandemic. She said she was out of work in mid-March and April when most of the country began to adopt restrictive measures to tackle the novel coronavirus.
“In one of the houses, I was sent away because the employers’ budget was cut, they work with companies that were affected by the pandemic. In others, as they had elderly people or children, they were afraid that I would bring the pandemic into their home and they dismissed me,” she says.
Figures from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) show that domestic and family service providers are the ones who suffer most from the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil.
Despite the slight rebound in other areas, particularly those with jobs requiring greater qualification, which have adjusted to home office, these segments are still unable to create new jobs.
According to data from Pnad Covid, a survey created by IBGE to quantify the impact of the pandemic in the country, about 500,000 jobs have been lost in domestic services since May. In one year, the domestic sector has lost 1,7 million positions, according to the Pnad Continuous report for July. As they use distinct methodologies, the two studies are not comparable, but point out the dramatic domestic labor scenario.
Janaina Mariano de Souza, president of the Union of Employees and Domestic Workers of Greater São Paulo, says that the sector is in free fall: for every ten consultations made by the organization, eight are of unemployed domestic workers in the period. “For our category, the pandemic is still causing damage, the number of unemployed housemaids is growing.”
In addition to dismissals, contracts are being suspended. The estimate is that for every 100 new documents that reach the union, 98 are for service suspension, based on the provisional measure established by the government. The concern is that these jobs will be discontinued after the initiative ends.
“Rodolpho Tobler, of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, points out that two factors are hindering domestic services to create jobs again. The first is the concern over income, the second is the fear of Covid-19 contagion.
“People avoid consuming services because they were dismissed or had salaries reduced. And the pandemic is not under control, this kind of service demands physical presence, there’s no way to have domestic service without it, you have to be present and all this is complicated”, says the economist.
He believes that because domestic employees use public transportation to go to work, they often create fear among employers of becoming infected and bringing the disease into their homes.
“And there is the matter of income; no one is sure that their salary will remain stable, people are deferring this consumption and seize this opportunity to cut down on spending.”
The FGV specialist says that the cut in emergency aid will put pressure on the job market, driving people to the streets in search of jobs.
“With the benefit halved, this puts pressure on the family budget and they are forced to look for jobs. The R$300 is not enough to sustain oneself, but the economy will not react as fast to absorb them all, and many are going to take odd jobs, to make a living,” he says.
In addition to domestic work, other services with similar features, such as low wages and high informality, were also severely impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
According to Pnad Covid, 350,000 jobs in lodging and catering (such as hotels and restaurants) and 300,000 in other services have been lost since May. The segment of other activities, which combines smaller services that do not fit any of the other surveyed, recorded a loss of 2.9 million.
In addition, these services account for four million jobs lost during the pandemic and have not yet shown any reaction, despite the relaxation of quarantine in recent weeks. Meanwhile, some other sectors are now showing a gradual rebound, such as building, trade and repair of vehicles and motorcycles, and in general and manufacturing industries.
For Professor Ricardo Macedo of IBMEC, this scenario is still related to the health crisis. As domestic and family services involve direct contact and crowding, the demand continues to be depressed by a consumer fearful of exposure.
Professor Otto Nogami, from INSPER, says that the process of recovering employment in services is facing difficulties despite the flexibilization.
“Many entrepreneurs are realizing that it is not worth resuming their activities, because they are losing more than profiting. They prefer to keep the business closed until things truly stabilize and start to return to normalcy more consistently.”
Another factor that explains the lack of reaction of employment in these sectors is the emergency aid: the benefit raised the income of the poorest to unprecedented levels, allowing them to remain at home rather than being exposed to the virus.
With the benefit halved, the trend is for these Brazilians to return to the streets to look for a job, which will pressure the rate of unemployment and informality.
Additionally, food inflation has risen – in September, the IPCA recorded the highest for the month since 2003. “The basic food basket was compromised. It is a matter of survival and maintenance of dignity, these people will be forced to come back, and informality will grow,” assesses professor Ricardo Macedo.
Source: Folhapress