Author: DENISE MENCHEN, CIRILO JUNIOR

Source: Folha de S. Paulo - São Paulo / SP - 27/11/2009

The unemployment rate in the six main metropolitan regions of the country reached, in October, the lowest level of the year, of 7,5%, practically stable in relation to September (7,7%). The index is equivalent to 1,753 million unemployed in those regions.

The result was also the same as in October 2008, when the effects of the economic crisis on the labor market were still incipient. Unemployment was at its lowest level for a month in October since the beginning of the historical series in 2002.

The general rate, however, hides regional inequalities. While in Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro the accumulated unemployment in 2009 is below that verified in the same period of 2008, the movement is high in Recife and, mainly, in São Paulo.

In the capital of São Paulo, the average unemployment rate from January to October is 9,5%, almost one percentage point above the 8,6% in 2008. About 850 thousand people were unemployed in São Paulo in October. In Brazil, the annual average is 8,3% -0,2 percentage points above that of 2008.

For Cimar Azeredo, coordinator of the Monthly Employment Survey of IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the result is linked to the strong weight of the industry in the São Paulo labor market. The sector was one of the most affected by the crisis due to the fall in external demand and the scarcity of credit.
Azeredo points out a warning sign: for the first time since 2004, the number of workers with a formal contract was less than that verified in the same month of the previous year. The fall was 0,3%.

“The portfolio is reduced and, consequently, there is a reduction in the quality of employment, which opens space for an increase in the number of self-employed workers and employees without a portfolio, who are close to informality.”

THE RIO BRANCH