Since mid-2014 Brazil has plunged into a recession that has caused our economy to shrink 8.1% and lose approximately 3 million formal jobs in the various productive sectors. According to Carlos Eduardo Fredo, Celso Vegro and Celma Baptistella, researchers at the Institute of Agricultural Economics (IEA), a research body of the Department of Agriculture and Food Supply, the magnitude of this fall could have been even greater if it were not for the economic results obtained by agriculture. State of São Paulo, based on data from the General Register of Employees and Unemployed (Caged) of the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE).
The downward movement of the economy began to reverse in 2017, when GDP grew by 1.1%, and continues waving the possibility of maintaining the pace of expansion throughout 2018. The good winds, however, did not desired effect on the labor market with the resumption of formal contractions. On the one hand, the percentage of the unemployed in the economically active population remains around 13.1%, and on the other hand, the newly created vacancies are of lower quality and lower remuneration (informal and temporary labor market), compared to those which were closed.
Between January and March 2018, 43.7 thousand admissions were registered in the agricultural sector of São Paulo, an amount 36.8% higher than the last quarter of 2017. The first quarter corresponds to the period of the off-season of agricultural activities, whose predominant operations are the preparation soil, planting, maintenance of motorized equipment and other activities. Although some of these operations have already incorporated the use of machines, they still demand labor, however, in a much lower amount than the harvest period that absorbs more workers for harvesting operations.
The agricultural activities that stimulated the contracting were the cultivation of sugar cane, of orange, activities of support to the agriculture, breeding of bovines and of birds. Boards totaled 29,150 admissions and 45,184 terminations. Gender and formal education interfere in the remuneration, contracting and disconnections of the agricultural sector in the same way as in the total data. “The proportion of women admitted is lower than that of men in the first three months of 2018. The same is true for individuals who have the least education,” the researchers note.
With the beginning of the sugarcane harvest and perennial activities, such as orange and coffee, in the next quarter, the expectation is that the sector intensifies the number of admissions, generating positive balances in the stocks of formal jobs. Even though, the turnover achieved in the last Agrishow justifies the optimism regarding the acceleration in the pace of formal hiring due to the increase in productive investment in the segment, the authors conclude.
This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.