The performance of the economy in the first quarter is going to be much better than expected for no more than a couple of months. The GDP numbers come out this Thursday. Other indicators continue to show improvement. Or at least it worsens: that is, progress in relation to a very deteriorated situation, gains that still do not make up for losses, “growth on a low base”, as they say in the jargon.
One of these advances is in the employment situation, with the glass half full of the increase in the number of people employed, and with the glass leaking from wages, the lowest in the decade and with a decline interrupted last month. The employment numbers were released this Tuesday (31) by the IBGE.
For almost everyone, GDP numbers cause boredom, indifference, or angry disbelief. Suffice it to say that the economy at least got worse to be the object of the ire of bolsonaristas or oppositionists, at the same time. Few people care because what matters more is the “thermal sensation”, everyday life, which is of people picking up what to eat in the trash, left on the street and horrendous famine.
Still, something moves, what has been written in these columns for a couple of months now.
The number of people with some type of work has grown again. In the quarter ended in March 2022, the number of employed persons was 8.2 million people higher than in March 2021. In April, in the annual comparison, the increase was 9 million. The unemployment rate dropped again. For the months of April, it is the lowest since 2015.
Last year was still a horrendous epidemic. But the number of employed is increasingly higher also in relation to the months of 2019 (3.3 million more than in April 2019).
“Salaries” (income from work) remain the lowest of the decade, in real terms (discounting inflation), since 2012, as long as there are comparable statistics.
Again, in May, confidence in almost all sectors increased (industry, commerce and services, less civil construction, in April; in April, it had decreased only in commerce), according to the FGV survey. The level of industrial production capacity utilization rose again.
Federal tax revenue had another huge jump, more than 10% in real terms in one year, in April. It is a result of inflation, more taxes paid by companies, especially those benefiting from the rise in commodity prices (grain, oil, ore).
Where do you see such an improvement? It is hard to see, because it is a worsening in a country that was not so poor for more than a decade, in which there was enormous social disruption, precarious employment and the incapacity of many people to work (due to long-term unemployment, due to incapacity to new functions etc.).
However, for the 9 million who found some work, the situation went from despair to hardness, from no income to some, which must have contributed to Jair Bolsonaro’s improvement in the polls until March and the maintenance of his indexes this May. (Lula rose, but Bolsonaro did not fall).
Will this downturn last? The average of economists’ forecasts says no, that the worsening starts in July. The benefits of rising commodities, reconstruction of sectors devastated by the epidemic and anabolic steroids such as the partial withdrawal of the FGTS will lose effect or will have their strength reduced by persistent inflation (which will little improve with the demagoguery of fuels) and by high interest rates (which will hit civil construction and durable goods).
If the downturn is a flash in the pan, this will have some weight in the electoral contest; the longer it lasts, the better for Bolsonaro. Yes, there are other discrediting factors. But pay attention.
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
