More recent data released by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (BIM) show that 3.3 million people have stopped looking for jobs in the country since the economic crisis began to deteriorate the Brazilian labor market. It is as if in four years time the entire population of Uruguay or states like the Amazon have decided to fold their arms.
The situation seems to be a contradiction, because given a scenario of severe economic recession it would be natural for people who do not work – either because they devote themselves exclusively to studies or childcare, for example – to look for work to help put together the family income. But the low prospect of getting a seat and the long queue made Brazil reach the record of discouraged.
Discouragement is the term used to describe the situation of people of working age who can work but are not looking for work for various reasons. Dictionaries contain discouraged people as discouraged, discouraged and unwilling to act.
In the second quarter of 2014 there were 1.5 million people in the Brazilian job market who were discouraged. According to BIM, this was the lowest number of people in this situation since 2012, when the historical series of the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) began.
It was in that period that the country began to appear from the so-called full employment, achieved in December 2013, and to enter into the biggest economic crisis in its recent history. Since then, the number of discouraged people has skyrocketed to 4.8 million people in the second quarter of this year – the highest number since the BIM began investigations – an increase of 227% in this period.
Despondency grows in Brazil after a crisis
Number of discouraged people reached record in the second quarter of 2018.
Source: IBGE
According to the BIM Coordinator for Work and Income, Cimar Azeredo, several factors lead to someone joining the discouraged group. In a period of economic crisis, however, the loss of purchasing power contributes to the increase of this population.
"Many of these discouraged people do not even have the money to pay for and to look for a job, but if you offer [uma vaga de emprego]they will accept it and can take over, "said the researcher.
Also contribute to the increase of discouragement, according to Azeredo, the subjective perception of the population in relation to the labor market.
"The difficulty of having other family members get a job, or even the news in the media about high unemployment, already affects people's perception of the difficulty of finding a job," he said.
But the discouragement to seek employment is also directly related to the unemployment line. Of the 13 million unemployed in Brazil in the second quarter of this year, 3.1 million have been seeking a chance in the market for more than two years – the largest contingent of so-called long-term unemployment since 2012.
"The chance that a person gives up looking for a job is closely related to the time she was looking for a job," Azeredo emphasized.
According to the IBGE survey, since the start of the economic crisis in 2014, the number of people looking for more than two years has increased 162%.
Northeast concentrates 60% of the discouraged
Of the 4.8 million people who are discouraged in the country, according to the BIM there are 2.9 million in the Northeast, which corresponds to 60% of all Brazilians in this situation. The southeast, the most populous region of Brazil, is in second place, with 1 million discouraged (20% of the total). The south in turn concentrates the smallest quota – 194 thousand people (4%).
Distribution of discouraged people in Brazil
There were 4.8 million people in the country in the second quarter of 2018.
Source: IBGE
Among the most discouraged states, Bahia stands up with nearly 600 thousand people in this situation – which is equivalent to 20% of the total number of people in a discouraged state in the Northeast. The number is much larger than that of São Paulo (384,000) and Minas Gerais (296,000), explains with the largest population groups in the country.
Still according to the IBGE survey, the state of Santa Catarina in the four years of economic crisis had the largest percentage increase in the number of discouraged people – from three thousand people in the second quarter of 2014 to 25 thousand in the second quarter of 2018 – a increase of 733%.
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