In the first quarter of 2018, the employed population (OP) in agribusiness increased by 0.4% compared to the same period of the previous year, according to researchers at Esalq / USP’s Cepea Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics. This aggregate agribusiness result arises mainly from the growth of occupations in the industrial links, since, in the primary segment, there was a decrease.
Researchers at Cepea point out the significant growth of 6.6% in the employed population in the input segment – due to the positive performance of the fertilizer and agricultural pesticides industries – and the reduction of 1.7% in the number of workers in primary activities.
For the agribusiness, the positive numbers reflect the very recovery of the segment’s production throughout 2017 and also in the first months of 2018; for the primary segment, the reduction of the employed population is not punctual, but rather follows a long-term trend.
Since 2012, the period of availability of the PNAD (National Survey for Household Sample) Continuous, the agricultural and livestock PO has been reduced annually, consistently. Factors such as the infeasibility of small rural establishments in the highly competitive and technological environment that has consolidated in Brazilian agriculture, the intensification and concentration of production and better employment opportunities in urban environments are pointed out as important to explain this trend of decline of the population occupied in the segment.
This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.