Continuous PNAD
Employment remains stable, but underutilized population is the biggest since 2012
June 28, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: July 03, 2019 11h35 AM
Unemployment remained stable and reached 13 million persons in the quarter ended in May, but the underutilized contingent was the largest since 2012, reaching 28.5 million persons.
The increase in the number of underutilized persons was driven by two other records, 7.2 million underemployed and 4.9 million discouraged persons. This is what we can see in the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD) , released today by the IBGE.
The labor underutilization rate also hit a record and repeated the 25% recorded in the first quarter of this year. Besides the unemployed population, the underemployed population comprises the underemployed (available to work longer hours), the discouraged (who gave up looking for a job) and a share that cannot look for work for different reasons.
The contingent of persons employed in the labor market was also the largest in the Continuous PNAD time series. There were 92.9 million workers in the quarter ended in May, a high of 1.2% from the quarter ended in February and of 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year.
The Continuous PNAD analyst, Adriana Beringuy, points out that this result was due to the growth of the population available to work longer hours. "From the increase of 1.1 million employed persons from one quarter to the next, 582 thousand persons were from time-related underemployment, corresponding to more than 50% of that high", explains the IBGE analyst.
This growth in employment is also explained by informality in the labor market. "Despite the increase in the workers with a labor contract compared to the same period of 2018, the fact that really leverages the change of the employed population is the increase of the workers without a formal contract and the self-employed," explains Adriana, adding that self-employed workers not registered in the National Register of Legal Entities (CNPJ) increased by 330 thousand and represent 80.2% of the category.
According to the survey, there were 24 million self-employed workers, the largest contingent in the time series, growing 1.4% compared to the previous quarter and 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year.
On the other hand, workers without a formal contract reached 11.4 million, an increase of 2.8% compared to the previous quarter and 3.4% compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Another result indicated by the survey was the reduction of the average income of the worker, which was R$2,289, which represents a decrease of 1.5% in comparison with the previous quarter and stability in relation to the same period of last year.
