Employment Rate in Brazil Reaches Lowest Level in Eight Years, Says IBGE

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian population’s employment rate stood at 51.6 percent in the quarter ended April this year. The data represents the percentage of Brazilians of working age who are effectively employed. This is the indicator’s lowest level since the National Continuous Household Sample Survey ( PNAD-Continuous) began in 2012.

In the quarter ended in January, the employment rate had reached 54.8 percent. In April last year, the rate stood at 54.2 percent.

The employed population was 89.2 million people in the quarter ended in April, down 5.2 percent from January this year (4.9 million fewer people) and 3.4 percent from April last year (3.1 million people). Declines in both comparisons were record-breaking.

The total number of unemployed in Brazil in the quarter ended April this year reached 12.8 million people. This is 7.5 percent higher than the 11.9 million unemployed in the quarter ended in January this year. Compared to the quarter ended in April 2019 (13.2 million), the unemployed remained statistically stable.

Compared with January this year, the greatest job losses were found in building (-13.1 percent), housing and catering (-12.4 percent) and domestic services (-11.6 percent). Only public administration had job growth (1.8 percent).

Compared to April last year, the sectors with the highest losses continued to be construction (-10.2 percent), domestic services (-10.1 percent) and housing and catering (-9.3 percent).

Among the types of employment, the sectors that suffered most job losses when compared to January were casual: in the private sector (-13.2 percent) and domestic services (-12.6 percent).

Compared to April last year, the most significant job losses occurred in private casual employment (-9.7 percent), domestic workers (-10.1 percent), businesses without a National Registry of Legal Entities – CNPJ (-13.0 percent) and auxiliary family workers (-11.2 percent).

The number of formal workers in the private sector dropped to 32.2 million, the lowest level in the historical series, down 4.5 percent from the previous quarter and 2.8 percent from the same quarter in 2019.

The rate of casual labor also reached an all-time low (from the series started in 2016) of 34.6 million workers, representing 38.8 percent of the employed population. In the previous quarter, the rate had stood at 40.7 percent and 40.9 percent in the quarter ended in April 2019.

The worker’s real income (R$2,425) increased two percent over the previous quarter and 2.5 percent over the same quarter in 2019.

The underutilized population, that is, those who could be unemployed or who could work more hours than they do, reached 28.7 million, a record in the historical series, 8.7 percent higher than the quarter ended in January this year but remaining statistically stable compared to April 2019.

The composite underutilization rate stood at 25.6 percent, a record for the series, up from 23.2 percent in January and 24.9 percent in April 2019.

The population out of the workforce (70.9 million people) set a new record in the series started in 2012, with an increase of 7.9 percent (5.2 million more people) over the previous quarter and 9.2 percent (6 million more) compared to April 2019.

The discouraged population (i.e. those who gave up looking for jobs) reached five million, another record in the series, increasing seven percent over the previous quarter and statistically stable compared to April 2019.

Another record was the percentage of discouraged compared to the population in the labor force or discouraged: 4.7 percent. The rate is higher than January (4.2 percent) and April last year (4.4 percent).