Informal jobs contribute once again to unemployment drop
September 29, 2017 09h00 AM | Last Updated: October 09, 2017 10h02 AM
The unemployment rate (12.6%) fell 0.7 percentage points in the June-July-August quarter compared to the March-April-May quarter (13.3%), according to the results of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-C). In the quarter from July to August of 2016, the rate was 11.8%. This behavior repeated the previous quarters.
More than half of the increase of 1.4 million employed persons, in the quarter ended in August, was determined by growths in the categories of informal occupations: workers without a formal contract and self-employed persons. In the quarter, there was an increase of 2.1% of the self-employed workers, with 472 thousand more persons, totaling 22.8 million persons in this category. There was a growth of 286 thousand persons without a formal contract, with a total of 10.8 million employees in such a condition in the country.
The manager of the survey, Cimar Azeredo, explains that, after economic downturn, it is common for recovery to start by informality. The labor market advance "takes 658 thousand persons out of the unemployment line, a significant drop of 4.8% in the quarter ended in August against the previous one". Compared to the June-July-August quarter of 2016, the employment increase was of 1.4 million persons.
Among the activity groups, the recovery in the quarter ended in August over the previous one was mostly due to General Industry (1.9% or 227 thousand more persons), Construction (2.9% or 191 thousand more persons), and Public administration, defense, social security, education, human health and social services (2.7% or 414 thousand more persons). It was also seen in the group Other Services (3.0% or 132 thousand more persons). "Job generation have been significant in Industry, but in August what called the attention was the growth in the sector of Civil Construction and Public Administration, due to new hirings in the City Halls", Azeredo concluded.
Text: Adriana Saraiva
Graph: Pedro Vidal
Photo: Pedro Vidal
