Following two straight months of negative results, Brazil’s industrial employment grew 0.4% in January, compared with the previous month. The increase is even greater when compared with January, 2004: 3.2%.
The overall annualized figure for the 12 preceding months also registers an upward trend, with the index rising from 1.8% in December to 2.2% in January.
Only two of the 14 regions surveyed failed to present an improvement in the rates of hirings versus firings, compared with January, 2004: Rio Grande do Sul (-1.2%) and Rio de Janeiro (-1.0%).
These data are contained in the Monthly Industrial Employment and Salary Survey, released March 16 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
“Brazil’s unemployment rate reveals a firm downward trend, which should become more solid over the course of President Lula’s Administration.”
This affirmation comes from the Minister of Labor and Employment, Ricardo Berzoini, who participated at the opening of the seminar “Brazil-Canada: Challenges to Job Creation,” at the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) in Brasília, earlier this month.
He commemorated the generation of 2.3 million formal job positions during the current Administration, in consequence of overall domestic economic growth, which registered a 5.2% increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2004, and he foresaw the creation of “many more jobs” as a result of the changes proposed in the union reform project sent by the Executive to the National Congress.
Berzoini said that the growth registered during these two years of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Administration “is reason for commemoration but not complacency.”
He emphasized the need for a more coordinated effort between the government and entrepreneurs for the country to consolidate its economic recovery even more, with more investments and the subsequent creation of jobs.
Translation: David Silberstein
Reporter – Agência Brasil