Brasília - Brazil's Industrial Confederation (Confederação Nacional da Indústria) (CNI) has just released its latest sector survey, covering the month of November, which shows strong performance across the board. And that was not just for the month, but for the year of 2004.

In the industrial sector employment remained positive for the entire 11-month period of 2004 surveyed by the CNI, with a rise in the second half. Thus, the number of workers was up 6.59% in November 2004, compared to November 2003. For the whole year of 2004, jobs were up 3.16%.

Wages also improved. November wages were up 1.49%, compared to October. Compared to November 2003, there was a significant 10.26% increase in wages. For the year of 2004, to November, compared to the same period in 2003, wages were up 8.85%.

As for industrial sector sales, following two consecutive months in decline, they were up 1.83% in November, compared to October. Compared to November 2003, the increase was 11.09%.

In November the rate of installed capacity use was 83.6%, down slightly (0.4 percentage points) from the record in October.

Translation: Allen Bennett