PNADCM
Unemployment falls to 11.2% in November with job positions opened in trade
December 27, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: December 27, 2019 11h08 AM
The temporary positions opened in the trade to face the holiday season contributed to the drop of 0.7 percentage points in the unemployment rate, which stayed at 11.2% in the quarter ended in November. This was the biggest reduction in the time series, matching the quarter ended in August 2017 (-0.7 p.p.). Having increased 0.8%, the employed population hit the record of 94.4 million persons. Even so, more than 11.9 million persons were still searching for a job in Brazil. These data are from the Continuous PNAD of November, released today by the IBGE.
There were more 785 thousand employed persons in the labor market in relation to the previous quarter. In the sector of Trade, employment rose 1.8%, which corresponds to 338 thousand job positions. Housing and food ranked in the second position, with more 204 thousand employed persons, followed by Construction, with 180 thousand job positions.
According to Adriana Beringuy, an analyst of the survey, this result confirms the expected seasonality in this time of the year, resumed in 2017. "We stayed two years, in 2015 and 2016, without the seasonality, since sufficient job positions were not generated to meet the demand for work. Now, the trade shows a positive movement in the quarter ended in November, which is supposed to be related to commemorative days like Black Friday and the anticipation of shopping" explained her.
The drop in the unemployment rate was followed by the increase of 1.1% in the generation of jobs with a formal contract, the biggest growth since the quarter ended in May 2014. They were more 378 thousand persons with a formal contract, adding up to 33.4 million workers in this category. It expanded 1.6% (more 516 thousand persons) compared with the quarter from September to November 2018.
Nevertheless, the improve in the formal contracts has been followed by the increase in the indicators of informality. For instance, an increase of 1.2% in the number of self-employed workers was registered in the quarter, i.e., more 303 thousand persons were added to the contingent of 24.6 million persons in this position. As a result, the informal employed population hit 38.8 million persons.
"The movement of the formal contracts is positive, though not sufficient to change the structure of the labor market. Despite this reaction, the categories related to informality, such as self-employment and employment without a formal contract, grew along the entire year", concluded Adriana Beringuy.
