According to Brazil’s General Register of Employed and Unemployed Persons (Caged), a total of 1.2 formal jobs were lost in the first half of 2020. This is the worst result for the period in the Economy Ministry’s historical series, which began in 2010.
For means of comparison, in the first six month of 2019, the job balance was positive, with Brazil creating 408,000 new formal positions. Considered one of the best measures of the country’s labor market, Caged reported 6,718,276 new hires, and 7,916,639 layoffs between January and the end of June.
As The Brazilian Report has shown, the coronavirus pandemic will push Brazil into a job apocalypse. Even the most conservative predictions — such as those of the Brazilian Senate’s Independent Fiscal Institution (IFI) — say the unemployment rate could hit 14.2 percent by the end of 2020, after standing at 11.9 percent last year.
More pessimistic forecasts have joblessness climbing to as high as 17 percent. This rise of unemployment is currently boosting informality, in a trend seen across the region: the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that Latin America lost 47 million jobs between January and July this year.
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