Brasília, October 22, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The tendency for formal employment to increase, as has occurred during the course of the year, continued in September, according to the General Register of Employment and Unemployment (CAGED), released by the Ministry of Labor. 161,765 new job positions were created in September, a 0.7% increase in comparison with August. With this result, there have been nine consecutive months in which the contingent of employees with signed working papers has grown.

The balance sheet from January to September indicates the generation of a total of 839,677 formal jobs. This figure represents an increase of 3.76%.

The manufacturing industry was the sector that grew the most. The increase in September was 1.37%, and the overall increase from January to September amounted to 4.04%, or 210,536 new positions.

The service sector displayed the second best performance last month, with an additional 55,541 jobs, 0.61% more than in August. Since the start of the year, the service sector was the one in which the greatest expansion of job offers occurred: 265,938 new openings.

The commercial sector came in third, with an increase of 34,584 new jobs in September. This was the best monthly result since November, 2002.

The Southeast and Northeast regions achieved the best indexes of formal employment. In the Northeast 75,069 new jobs were created. In the Southeast the balance came to 43,304 new positions.

According to the study, all of the metropolitan areas experienced an expansion of openings, and, together, they accounted for the generation of 52,246 jobs. The greater São Paulo area obtained the best absolute result, with 12,689 openings. Next came the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, with 10,562 and 9,876 positions, respectively. (DAS)