July 2, 2022

07:07

André Leocádio – Amazon Agency

MANAUS – The search for formal employment is increasingly difficult and this is not news, however, this reality seems to change with the continued recovery of the labor market. According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), released on Tuesday, 28, the unemployment rate in Brazil fell to 9.8% in the second quarter of this year, still unemployment affects more than 10 million Brazilians.

According to the survey, for the first time the North Region equaled the Southeast Region of the country. National Data by Continuous Household Sampling (PNAD) also showed that the North had the largest reduction in its unemployment rate in the last quarter. Compared to the same period in 2013, unemployment in the region fell 0.6 percentage points, from 7.5% to the current 6.9%. And compared to the second quarter, the drop was 0.3 point.

According to Adjalma Nogueira, coordinator of Information Dissemination of IBGE, the local labor market is drawing a new configuration, even with the reduction of the unemployment rate the informality has increased. Many people decided to become entrepreneurs and become self-employed.

“The survey estimated that the unoccupied population, in Amazonas, in the 1st quarter of 2022, was 256 thousand people, 5 thousand more (1.9%) than in the previous quarter. But, in comparison with the 1st quarter of 2021, there were 73 thousand less unemployed (-22.2%) in the state. Of the total of 3.9 million and 950 thousand people of working age (14 years old and older), in Amazonas, 1.712 million people were estimated to be employed in the 1st quarter of 2022, compared to 1.671 million estimated in the previous quarter, or 41 thousand more employed (2.4%), a non-statistically significant variation. In relation to the first quarter of 2021, the employed population increased by 173 thousand people, (11.2% up)”, he explained.

Aparecida is an example of this. For ten years she had been working as a regular employee at a watch company in Manaus. With the pandemic and the economic crisis that affected Amazonas, she was fired from her job. It was then that she decided to become an entrepreneur. She says that she had already found a registered job, but preferred to work informally.

“When I was fired I didn’t despair. I started thinking about how I was going to provide for my family. So I decided to sell tacacá. Actually, I do more than that. I saved part of the money I received in my severance pay to buy clothes to sell. I also make handcrafts, bracelets. I get by on my 30s. In the end I manage to have a higher income than when I was employed with a formal contract”, she said.

The rate in Amazonas (13.0%) is still higher than the national rate, but it is the lowest rate observed in the state since the 1st quarter of 2016 (12.9%). Pará, the second largest state in the North Region, also showed a significant reduction in relation to the previous quarter. The survey showed that the unoccupied population stopped looking for registered employment and chose informal work. See the chart below for complete data for each state.

Perspectives

With the current scenario of inflation at high levels and interest rates on an upward trajectory, the growth of the economy ends up limiting the pace of growth in the labor market. In the Manaus Free Trade Zone, for example, the three decrees of reduction in the Tax on Industrialized Products (IPI), by up to 25%, sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro, now no longer in effect, could have compromised many jobs. The federal government, in turn, is studying some possibilities to accelerate the recovery of the economy and ensure jobs and income.