Brazil / Labor Market Begins To Cool

Higher wages and high demand for both skilled and non-skilled workers has kept unemployment at record lows of around 5.5%, but that trend may be drawing to a close.

Still, out of all the countries in South America, no one earns as much as a Brazilian. Within the BRICs, Brazilian workers are better paid than most Russians in similar professional categories. Brazil analysts like Tony Volpon, a managing director at Nomura Securities, forecast this year that Brazilian companies will have to start shedding jobs. The economy is simply not expanding enough to warrant such a tight labor market.

Even the International Monetary Fund expects unemployment in Brazil to rise to more than 6% next year.

On Friday, the Brazilian Labor Ministry provided evidence that — despite job creation still taking place — jobs are a little harder to come by. The country created 1.1 million new jobs in 2012, down 48% from the 2.2 million created in 2011.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Brazil’s Red Hot Labor Market Begins To Cool – Forbes.