Brazil generates over 400 thousand new formal jobs in February

Brazil generated 401,639 new job posts in February this year, the difference between 1,694,604 admissions and 1,292,965 layoffs in the formal labor market. The growth is the highest for the month, according to the country’s Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.

“Once again, the vigor of Brazil’s economy, the resilience of the Brazilian economy, has come as a surprise,” he said during an online presser on the publication of the General Record of the Employed and Unemployed (CAGED). “New jobs total 400 thousand, a record for February. It goes to show us that we are definitely on the right track from the viewpoint of the recovery of the economic activity,” he added.

February, however, does not encompass the period of more rigorous restrictions on activities, imposed by a number of states and municipalities in a bid to tackle the new wave of COVID-19 cases.

In this connection, Guedes argues, the government’s focus should be mass vaccination for the people, “especially for the 40 million Brazilians in the informal labor market,” which is the group of most vulnerable workers, benefited by the federal government’s emergency allowance.

According to the minister, approximately ten percent of new admissions—173 thousand posts—fall under services, which is also the most sensitive sector for informal workers. “We need to vaccinate in mass so that Brazilian informal workers—the nearly 40 million invisible ones—do not have to make the cruel choice of either going out [for work] and being infected, or staying in and not having what to eat,” he said.

Brazil’s formal workers added up to 40,022,748 in February—a change of 1.01 percent from the month before. Year-to-date, a surplus of 659,780 jobs were registered, stemming from the 3,269,417 admissions minus 2,609,637 layoffs.