Women Get Fired as Men Get Hired in Brazil Economic Recovery

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s labor market is starting to recover from a deep recession but it’s men who are getting all the new jobs.

Brazil last year lost far fewer jobs than it did in the previous two years -- 20,832 compared with the nearly 3 million positions that vanished between 2015 and 2016. But a closer look shows the male labor force benefiting more. While 21,694 men found employment in 2017, nearly twice as many women were fired.

Part of the reason is that the economy is creating a larger number of jobs in areas usually dominated by men, such as factories, said Mario Magalhaes, statistics coordinator at the labor ministry. Women are predominantly employed in administration and services. They also make 25 percent less than their male counterparts on average, according to Brazil’s statistics institute.

The Brazilian economy is expected to expand 2.5 percent this year, from an estimated 1 percent growth in 2017. The labor market has been much slower to recover.

“Our task is to recover 3 million jobs as fast as possible,” Magalhaes told reporters in Brasilia. “Maybe that can be done over the next two years.”

--With assistance from David Biller

To contact the reporter on this story: Rachel Gamarski in in Brasilia at rgamarski@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Raymond Colitt at rcolitt@bloomberg.net, Walter Brandimarte

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