The number of employees with a work contract in the private sector reached 37.995 million in the quarter ended in February this year. It is the highest value in the historical series of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad), started in 2012 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
There was an increase of 0.7% compared to the previous quarter (ended in November 2023) According to IBGE, this is not a statistically relevant variation and means stability.
“This stability has been preceded by successive increases in the population with a formal employment contract”, says IBGE researcher Adriana Beringuy.
In relation to the previous year (quarter ending in February 2023), for example, growth of 3.2% was recorded, that is, 1.2 million more workers with a formal contract in the private sector.
These numbers do not consider domestic workers, even if they have a formal contract. These remained stable (5.9 million people) in both temporal comparisons. The same happened with self-employed workers (25.4 million) and employers (4.2 million).
Unregistered employees in the private sector totaled 13.3 million, statistically stable in the quarterly comparison. Compared to the previous year, however, there was growth of 2.6%, that is, 331 thousand more people.
Informality
The number of informal workers stood at 38.8 million, below the 39.4 million in the previous quarter, but above the 38.2 million in February 2023.
The employed population (100.25 million) remained statistically stable in the quarter, despite the negative, but statistically non-significant, variation of 258 thousand.
“The informal part of the employed population fell by 581 thousand people, that is, informality fell more than the employed population as a whole. So we turned the year around with a more pronounced reduction in the informal segment of employment”, explains the researcher.
The informality rate, which is the percentage of informal workers in relation to the total employed population, was 38.7% in the quarter ending in February this year, below the 39.2% in November.
Occupation
As the employed population grew 2.2% in the annual comparison, the informality rate in February this year is also lower than that recorded in February last year (38.9%), even though there was a higher absolute number of informal workers ( 38.8 million against 38.2 million).
The employment level, which is the percentage of employed people in relation to those of working age, was 57.1% in February this year, below the 57.4% in the previous quarter but above the 56.4% last year .
In the quarterly comparison, the sectors with declines in employment were agriculture (-3.7%) and public administration, health and education (-2.2%), while transport, storage and mailing was the only segment with an increase (5.1 %).
In the annual comparison, a drop was observed only in agriculture (-5.6%). Increases were recorded in public administration, health and education (2.8%), information and communication (6.5%), storage and mail (7.7%) and industry (3.1%).
Unemployment
The unemployment rate was 7.8% in February this year, 0.3 percentage points above the previous quarter (7.5%). This growth is always recorded at the beginning of the year, due to the basis of comparison being the end of the previous year, when there is more job creation due to Christmas.
Only in 2022, when the Covid-19 pandemic was taking effect, was there no increase in the unemployment rate from November to February. On the other hand, compared to February last year (8.6%), the rate fell 0.8 percentage points.
The unemployed population stood at 8.5 million, an increase of 4.1% in the quarterly comparison (i.e., with November 2023) and a drop of 7.5% in the annual comparison (i.e., with February of last year).
Underutilization
The research also evaluates the total number of underutilized people in the labor market, a contingent that includes the unemployed, workers who would like to work more hours, who would like to work but were unable to work for some reason and those who were looking for a job but did not want to work.
Underutilized people totaled 20.637 million people, that is, 3.4% more than in the previous quarter, but 4.5% below February 2023. The underutilization rate was 17.8%, 0.5 percentage points above November but 1 percentage point below the previous year.
Performance
The usual real income from all jobs (R$3,110) grew 1.1% in the quarter and 4.3% in the year.
The usual real income mass (R$ 307.3 billion) reached a new record in the historical series started in 2012. There was no significant variation in the quarter, but there was an increase of 6.7% (more R$ 19.3 billion) in the comparison Yearly.
