Wellton Máximo      Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – The creation of registered, on-the-books jobs (“carteira assinada”) in Brazil took a nose dive in May. According to the General Employment Rolls (“Cadastro Geral de Empregados e Desempregados - 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 the 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 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.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Criação de empregos formais cai 44% em maio e registra pior resultado desde 2009