Brazil Starts 2017 with 41,000 Less Jobs as Unemployment Grows

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Brazil faced in January the 22nd consecutive month of increases in unemployment, according to the Ministry of Labor. The study (CAGED) shows that during the first month of 2017 the country closed almost 41,000 job positions.

According to Brazilian Statistics Bureau (IBGE) the number of unemployed persons in the three months ending in January reached almost thirteen million.

For the IBGE one of the factors which led to an increase by 7.3 percent of unemployed persons in the three months ending in January, in comparison to the three previous months (August, September, October), was the decline in the industrial sector.

“The industry once again shows an important, significant decline during the three months ending in January,” said IBGE unemployment study coordinator Cimar Azeredo, at the end of February, when presenting the latest labor data.

According to Azeredo, the industrial sector lost over 250,000 persons during the three-month period, a decrease of 2.2 percent in relation to the previous period.

The sector that registered the largest loss of jobs, however, was retail trade, with over 60,000 positions closed in January alone, according to the CAGED.

On the other hand, the government study revealed that there were signs of recovery in other sectors, such as the agriculture segment which opened up 10,663 job positions and the transformation industry, which after a few dismal years, opened 17,501 jobs in January.

In terms of the region where these job positions are being extinguished, the study shows that the Northeast led the layoffs, followed by the Southeast and the North.