Number of people employed in industry grew in the 1st year of the pandemic, points out IBGE

The Brazilian industry closed the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 compared to 2019, with an increase of 0.5% in the number of employed persons, equivalent to an increase of 35,241 vacancies.

The data are from the Annual Industrial Survey (PIA), released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) this Thursday morning (21). The result was driven by food product companies, which recorded a 7.4% increase between 2019 and 2020, with a growth of 121,500 jobs.

Also noteworthy, according to the IBGE, were companies manufacturing non-metallic mineral products (17,800 employed persons) and rubber and plastic products (15,900).

When looking at the percentage of growth in a year, along with the food industry, the podium goes to companies extracting oil and natural gas (20%) and manufacturing furniture (6.5%).

The manager of Structural Analysis at IBGE, Synthia Santana, assesses that some sectors managed to be more resilient at the beginning of the pandemic, while others suffered the impacts more intensely, with the difficulty of purchasing raw materials and changes in the production line.

“The balance ended up being positive for activities where there is an easier flow of production to the international market and these shipments were not so compromised”, says Synthia.

“These activities more linked to commodities, iron ores, as well as part of the food industry, mainly meat, notably those in the North and Midwest in the country, were less affected by the pandemic. It’s not that they weren’t affected, but, on balance, it ended up being positive for these specific activities.”

The biggest reductions in vacancies were observed in the sectors of petroleum derivatives and biofuels (91.9 thousand / -33.8%), clothing and accessories (59.5 thousand / -10.4%), in addition to leather articles and travel articles and footwear (30.9 thousand / -9.4%). The three also had a reduction in wages paid, of 22.8%, 18.2% and 21.5%, respectively.

Regarding remuneration, PIA 2020 points to a 4.3% drop compared to 2019. The first year of the pandemic ended with 303,600 companies, which paid R$ 308.4 billion in salaries, withdrawals and other remuneration to 7.7 million workers.

In addition, the IBGE recorded R$ 4 trillion in net sales revenue, that is, the money generated from the sale of products or the provision of services. In 2020, the food industry accounted for 24.1% of this value, followed by chemical products (10.5%) and petroleum derivatives and biofuels (8.6%).

The automotive vehicle industry fell from the second to the fourth position in the composition of net sales revenue in ten years, with a reduction in share from 12% to 7.1% between 2011 and 2020.

industry decade

The IBGE research also shows that, between 2011 and 2020, the Brazilian industry lost more than one million jobs, 998 thousand of them in the transformation segment. The study points out that these are companies that have faced “most intensely structural changes related, for example, to the evolution of technology, strong competition with the external sector and dependence on internal consumption.”

In that decade, more than half of the jobs lost were in three sectors: clothing and accessories (258.4 thousand vacancies), leather and travel articles and footwear (138.1 thousand) and metal products, except machinery and equipment (134 ,2 thousands).

“During this period, it is important to highlight the successive crises that the Brazilian economy has been going through. Starting in 2011, we were already experiencing an international crisis in 2009 and 2010. Then we had a biennium of recession in 2015 and 2016 and, now, the crisis in 2020. Therefore, this drop of one million jobs, over the course of ten years, accumulates the effect of successive crises that attack mainly those sectors that are more intensive in labor, as is the case, for example, of the clothing industry, one of the most employing”, says Synthia Santana, manager of Structural Analysis of the IBGE.