The creation of registered, on-the-books jobs in Brazil took a nose dive in May. According to the General Employment Rolls (Caged) at the Ministry of Labor, a total of 139,679 jobs were created, a drop of 44.5%, compared to May 2011 when 252,067 jobs were created.
It was the worse result for May since 2009. The best May on record was in 2010, when 298,041 jobs were created.
The farm segment created the most jobs this May, 46,261, followed by services, 44,587. The manufacturing segment created 20,299 jobs.
São Paulo was the state that created the most jobs in May: 52,600.
Cumulatively for the year, Brazil has created 877,909 jobs, down 21% for the same period last year when 1.11 million jobs were created.
A curious note is that on the same day Caged released its numbers, the government statistical bureau (IBGE) released its unemployment rate for May, which was 5.8%, the lowest ever for the month since records began in 2002.
However, Caged and IBGE use different methodologies and sometimes arrive at divergent results. The IBGE survey, for example, is limited to six metropolitan regions: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife e Porto Alegre.
Foreign Trade Surplus
Brazil’s trade balance registered a surplus of US$ 7.07 billion in the first half of this year. The surplus is the result of the difference between the total of US$ 117.215 billion in exports and US$ 110.142 billion in imports.
The data was released July 2 by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
In June, there was a surplus of US$ 807 million. Exports totaled US$ 19.354 billion, down 14.2%, compared to June last year. June imports reached US$ 18.547 billion, with an average daily value of imports coming in at a record for the month. Compared to the same period last year, imports were up 1.1%.
Even with the surplus, there was an overall decrease in June exports, compared to the same period last year. All three categories of exports showed a decline: semi-manufactured (-22.37%), manufactured (-17.2%) and basic (-10.2% .)
There were decreases in imports of capital goods (-0.5%), consumer goods (-7.1%), along with raw materials and intermediate goods (-3.1%). On the other hand, there was an increase in international purchases of fuels and lubricants (+22.8%).
