Keite Camacho
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Workers' income was the index that showed the highest rate of growth in the Industrial Indicators study prepared by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI). In June of this year, industrial workers' net salaries were 8.69% above where they stood in June, 2004.

"The expansion of industrial activity in June continues to be based on the exceptional increase in exports, which have broken records in recent months, and on the maintenance of domestic demand, which may have weakened a bit but continues to grow in consequence of the increase in the salary mass," affirmed the economist Flávio Castelo Branco, coordinator of the CNI's Economic Policy Unit.

According to Castelo Branco, with the increase in salaries, industrial workers' purchasing power continues to expand. The expectation is for this to endure over the coming months. "This should continue in the coming months, perhaps at a slower pace, but the sequence of increases will persist," he said.

Employment, on the other hand, demonstrates a slower pace of growth, reacting to a deceleration of activity. Industrial jobs rose 0.14% in June. "The labor market lost some of its impulse. It is reacting with a certain lag to the difficulties imposed on the productive sector by the increase in interest rates during the semester; consequently, the current pace of employment growth is quite modest, below what we observed in 2004. I believe it will continue to grow, but moderately," he judged. The results of the survey, which is conducted monthly, based on data gathered from three thousand firms, were released yesterday (4) by the CNI.

Translation: David Silberstein