Despite the pandemic, midsize companies have increased profit margins, says research

A survey by the Dom Cabral Foundation assessed the panorama of medium-sized Brazilian companies in the comparison between the years 2019 and 2020. Despite the drop in revenues, the profitability margins grew in the evaluated sectors.

TO CNN Radio, the professor at the Foundation, Eduardo Menicucci, explained that the official data of the companies with the Federal Revenue were analyzed. He highlighted that some aspects caught the attention of the research.

“There was a drop in the revenue of the 97 companies consulted, but, on the other hand, there was an increase in their profitability, margins increased well in the two years”, he said.

“There was also a reduction in the financial cycle, generating faster activity, and the most important maintenance of formal jobs, taking into account the height of the crisis”, he added.

This, according to him, demonstrates that “companies were agile in controlling expenses, costs and expenses, together with the fact that there were alternatives proposed by the federal government that provided ways to reduce expenses and increase productivity.”

The industry, for example, had the smallest drop in sales (-2.13%), but it was the second sector with the highest growth in net profit (184.77%) and kept the number of employees stable (0.66%) .

In the case of commerce, revenues were affected in an intermediate way (a drop of almost 4% in gross revenue), but it was the sector that had the most hires (an increase of almost 20% compared to 2019).

The services sector was the one that suffered the most in terms of revenue (down 18.54%) and the one that provided the most reduction in employees, with -18.67%.

According to Menicucci, companies show optimism for 2022, as they managed to sustain themselves in the worst period of the pandemic. “It is expected at least maintenance of revenue, profit margins they said they intend to maintain or increase the workforce.”