By José Meirelles Passos, O Globo - 22/12/2004

WASHINGTON. The report? Doing Business 2005? (? Doing Business 2005?), Prepared by the World Bank (Bird), on the cost and difficulties to open and maintain companies, taking into account above all bureaucracy and legal obstacles, shows that Brazil has improved throughout 2004. This in the which refers to reducing the weight and rigidity of labor laws, which made employers' performance a little easier.

According to the Bird system, which uses a table from zero to one hundred, the higher the number, the worse the situation. This means that labor regulations are stricter and heavier around XNUMX.

Bureaucracy in Brazil is above the LA average

The study shows that Brazil has managed to make progress in the general employment condition index, which includes workload, overtime payments, weekends and holidays and also the minimum wage legislation. The country appears with 72 points in this ranking, against 89 last year.

According to the table, Brazil's situation is almost equal to that of France and Greece (with 66 points) and identical to that of Mexico (72 points). But it is well above the Latin American average, which is 44 points, and also China (30) and Russia (27). Chile was the Latin American country that showed the most progress: it went from 65 points last year to 19 this year.

In a study completed in May 2003 by researchers from two American universities? Yale and Harvard? Brazil appeared as the one with the greatest bureaucracy burden in the labor sector. This study was done with 85 countries. In the survey by Bird, which covers 145 countries, the record holder in this regard is Burkina Faso (90 points).

Brazil improved in two other indexes, out of the four cataloged by Bird. In terms of flexibility for hiring workers, the country now appears with 67 points, against 78 last year. Argentina took a bigger leap: it went from 46 to 30. In the specific index on labor laws, the Brazilian improvement was 78 to 72. Chile improved even more: from 65 to 19 points.

It became more difficult to fire an employee in the country

There was, however, a stumbling block in the dismissal flexibility index: did Brazil go from 68 to 70? which in practice means that it has become more complicated and expensive to lay off employees in the country.

According to Bird, of the 58 countries that have reformed their regulations or strengthened the protection of property rights in the past 12 months, only six are in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua. Chile is the only Latin American that is among the 20 countries where it is easier to do business.