Good morning! We’re covering today the latest ILO report on Brazil’s unemployment. Has Brazilian banks’ run of massive gains come to an end? And how Russia tried to fuel social unrest in South America. (This newsletter is for premium subscribers only. Become one now!)
High unemployment the new normal in Brazil
The International Labor Organization (ILO) released its new “World Employment and Social Outlook” report today, with trends for the labor market in the coming years. It forecasts high unemployment rates for Brazil in the foreseeable future—remaining in double digits at least until 2024. If confirmed, unemployment levels would stay at their highest in 30 years, way above the 6.8 percent recorded in 2014 before the economic crisis.
In 2019, 60.8 million Brazilians were out of the workforce (also counting children and retirees). Next year, this group will be of 62.7 million people.
The new normal. “We currently don’t see a push big enough to allow those rates to get back to 2014 levels,” said Stefan Kuhn, a macroeconomist at the ILO. One of the main problems, he says, is Brazil’s model for growth, which is based on exports and commodities. “The global economy is deteriorating. It will become increasingly harder...