Revision of layoffs data caused the balance of formal job creation in Brazil to fall by half in 2020. According to new statistics from the General Register of Employed and Unemployed (Caged), 75,883 jobs were opened last year, down 46.8% in relation to the previous data of 142,690 vacancies.
The indicator measures the difference between hiring and firing with a formal contract. Initially, Caged indicated that there had been 15,166,221 admissions and 15,023,531 dismissals last year. With the revisions, the number of hires rose 1.8%, to 15,361,234. Layoffs increased 2.2% to 15,437,117.
Responsible for Caged since the re-creation of the folder, in July, the Ministry of Labor and Welfare attributed the reduction in the balance to the submission of late declarations, amid the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic and the adaptation to the new declaration model electronics.
New eSocial
Until 2019, hires and layoffs were reported manually. In January 2020, the process started to be performed electronically, through the Digital Bookkeeping of Tax, Social Security and Labor Obligations (eSocial).
In March 2020, shortly after the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Economy, then responsible for eSocial and Caged, suspended the disclosure of statistics for two months. At the time, the ministry claimed that, during the process of adapting to the new system, several dismissal statements were filled out incorrectly and that the rectification process was compromised by the pandemic.
Until that time, only the December 2019 Caged data had been released. The numbers were only presented again at the end of May 2020, with data from January to April of the same year and a new methodology that started to include temporary workers and scholarship holders, making it impossible to compare with the Caged of previous years.
Justification
In a statement, the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, informed that, even with the revision of the data, 2020 continued to register the creation of formal jobs. “We emphasize that, even with the aforementioned revision, the balance of the 2020 Caged remains positive, despite the worst moment of the covid-19 pandemic”, highlighted the folder. According to the ministry, the deadline for adjustments to last year’s data ends at the end of 2021.
“The out-of-date data entry happens when companies declare the admission and dismissal information after the competence in which the movement took place. The possibility of making this type of declaration already existed in the old Caged, with a slightly greater occurrence at this time due to the transition process to the declaration via eSocial, which occurred for a significant number of companies throughout 2021″, added the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
