Cristina Índio do Brasil
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Rio - The Labor and Employment Market Observatory, in the Ministry of Labor and Employment, expects that 1.4 million formal jobs (with signed working papers) will be created in Brazil this year. Paula Montagner, coordinator of the Observatory, says that the total may constitute a significant increase in relation to last year's figure of 1.25 million new formal jobs.

In an interview with the Radio Nacional's "Morning News" program, Montagner analyzed the three sectors that have stood out in terms of job creation in the past three years. She said that during this period the industrial sector generated 860 thousand job posts, part of them in the food industry, which processes agricultural raw materials both for export and domestic consumption.

Another important sector is clothing and textiles, which is predominately geared to the domestic market but has shown a growing interest in selling Brazilian fashions abroad. The third sector is services, with commerce playing a leading role.

In Montagner's analysis, another noteworthy factor is that competing on foreign markets nowadays increasingly implies quality and competitiveness without resorting to methods regarded as exploitative. "Nobody wants to buy products that were manufactured using slave-live labor. This is an incentive for employers to hire their employees on a formal basis."

Translation: David Silberstein