Rio job seekers reeling as Brazil struggles with recession

RIO DE JANEIRO — Evaldo Alves de Barros scanned the vacancies board with his hands deep in his pockets.

He was not looking for a job for himself this time. He was at the City Hall’s labor center in northern Rio de Janeiro to register his 21-year-old daughter.

“But there’s nothing for me there anyway,” he said, sitting on the agency’s porch.

As government figures confirmed that the once booming Brazilian economy contracted again last quarter, unemployment levels were predicted to surpass 10 percent next year, after reaching almost 9 percent. In the same period last year, the figure was 6.8 percent.

It has been a prolonged crisis for a country that not only weathered the global financial downturn but had managed to enjoy the Wonder Years of 2004 through 2008.

According to the most recent data, GDP shrank by 1.7 percent in the third quarter of this year — the third consecutive quarter to register a decline — as Brazil struggled to find a way out of recession.

“Brazil is continuing to worsen while the other [countries in the region] are starting … not to boom, but they’ve stopped worsening. In Brazil, there’s no sign of stabilizing,” said Ilan Goldfajn, the chief economist at Brazilian bank Itaú.

The bank forecast a 2.5 percent contraction in GDP for next year. “It’s very difficult to project 2017. The uncertainty is so great,” he added.

He said a turbulent political-fiscal scenario, which has since developed into the opening of impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, has “paralyzed” many sectors with insecurity.

“They don’t know if, going forward, there will be some tax that will take all their profit,” he said. “It’s hurting because we have a nucleus of problems, which is the political-fiscal question. Brazil needs to resolve its fiscal problem.”

Earlier this year Finance Minister Joaquim Levy said fiscal adjustments were necessary to rectify “slippage” in the economy. Last month the Central Bank of Brazil reported a cumulative primary deficit of 20 billion reals ($5.25 billion), compared with 11.6 billion reals last year.

For the population, the crisis has meant job insecurity. A macroeconomics report by Itaú found a loss of 208,000 jobs by September, with 92 percent reporting difficulty in finding work.

Employment centers across the city have seen a rise in demand, even as the crisis begins to affect support services offered by the state government.

“I don’t think there’s enough help,” said Barros, 49, who lost his job in catering almost two years ago and has been out of work since. “With the economic situation in the country at the moment, it’s bad. I’ve sent more than 50 resumes, and nothing. My wife and I started to save. We stopped our extra spending on unnecessary things. I needed to paint my house, but I left it.”

He said he suspected that companies were hiring younger workers at lower pay.

But for those looking for their first job, the scenario is equally tough.

Cintia Pereira, 22, from Acari, a neighborhood in the north of Rio, has been out of work since she finished studying. She said, “They don’t have anything for me. I’ve been [to the job center] more than 25 times, and every time, I have to pay to travel here. I did a course in reception work, but I’ll do anything. I’ll work in a shop or anything. I don’t know if it’s the crisis. But now it’s the end of the year. Everyone says there will be vacancies, but there’s nothing.”

Rio’s City Hall said the labor and jobs secretary has referred more than 31,000 people to the job market through October this year, compared with more than 35,500 last year.

As well as the eight job centers around the city, the secretary runs programs that list job vacancies, provide working papers for pacified favela communities and offer free courses, placements and apprenticeships.

“The demand for work has increased a lot,” a spokeswoman said. “But companies now are looking for people who can perform two or three functions, whereas before they would just hire two or three people. People are afraid of losing their jobs.”

Meanwhile, there are fears that the downturn could drive up migration to Brazil’s economic centers, like Rio.

The most recent statistics suggest a rise in movement to areas where agriculture is thriving despite the recession. The forested state of Mato Grosso do Sul, in the central west, saw the largest increase in nonlocal residents, by more than 5 percentage points.

“The state of Mato Grosso do Sul has consolidated itself as a pole of attraction for migrants because of the growth of agricultural activities,” a spokeswoman for the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics said.

But some who work in social outreach projects are concerned that Rio will attract economic migrants who see the 2016 Olympics as an opportunity for work.

“We already have a big homeless population. According to the last census, it was more than 5,000,” said Sylvia Lopes, a local coordinator for Emaús, part of the not-for-profit nongovernmental organization Banco da Providencia.

Emaús has residential spaces for 77 men to stay, receive treatment for alcohol or drug addiction and take courses to get them back into work.

“The quantity of vacancies is much less,” she said. “This 5,000 will increase because people come here without any perspective. They come to Rio without knowing anyone, without a job, without anywhere to live.

“They need some sort of agency at the bus station because the number of men who jump off the bus and go straight to the streets is very big. They come to Rio to try their luck.”

Meanwhile, the local population has just one hope, “that it’s over soon,” said Diego Rodrigues Santos, 25, who lives in western Rio and lost his job in advertising in September because of the downturn. “It has changed my life. I hope the job market improves and I can find something in the New Year.”