Pandemic reduces fixed vacancy and increases number of day laborers

“Each message that arrives brings new hope”, sums up Edjane Costa, 41, after posting an application for a cleaning job on social media. Looking for a job for more than six months, after leaving a vacancy for general services at a restaurant, she gets emotional when talking about the five children who are waiting with her next to her cell phone.

“I’ve worked since I was a teenager as a nanny and domestic, and my experience is what will save me now”, says the woman from Ceará, who is looking for opportunities in Camocim (272 km from Fortaleza). Today, the family depends on her mother’s retirement and on the Auxílio Brasil benefit.

“I placed an ad to be a regular or a day laborer, but I prefer to work in a single house. With a boss, you can catch up little by little. washing from the sidewalk to the yard in a few hours and there is no guarantee of work.”

But, as it is difficult to be fixed in a house, she calculates how much she has to charge for the daily rate — around R$ 70 —, while she plans to take training courses in cooking.

Lavinha Rosa de Jesus, 43, says she prefers to be a day laborer, despite the guarantees of her formal job. She has been working as a cleaning lady for 19 years and left the interior of Bahia for São Paulo in search of better living conditions. Since she was young, she already took care of cleaning the house of relatives and acquaintances, in exchange for help to support her two children.

“I was a young person, already with a child, and still with the responsibility of taking care of the house. I was used to the job, but I didn’t like it”, she says. After her husband moved to São Paulo, she left her fear behind and also migrated.

“I got to work in the same house for years, but today I’m a day laborer — and I prefer it that way.”

For her, the possibility of working in different homes brings advantages, such as not depending on the financial conditions of a single family to keep the job. She manages to earn more as a day laborer than when she was a monthly worker.

Data from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) indicate that, after the impact of Covid-19, the resumption of domestic work in the country was driven by informality.

From August to October this year, the number of domestic workers without a formal contract was estimated at 4.399 million. It is only 0.9% below the same quarter of 2019, in the pre-crisis (4.437 million).

The number of domestic workers with a formal contract, historically lower, was estimated at 1.483 million in the quarter through October 2022. It is still 13.3% below the same range of 2019 (1.710 million).

With these movements, the informal layer increased its participation in relation to the total number of professionals in the sector. The group without a portfolio now represents 74.8% of the category in the quarter through October of this year, compared to 72.2% in the same period of 2019.

The data are part of the Continuous PNAD (Continuous National Household Sample Survey). According to the IBGE survey, the total contingent of domestic workers was 5.882 million until last October, 4.3% below the same period in 2019 (6.147 million).

“It’s a recovery driven by informality”, says economist Ely José de Mattos, a researcher at the PUCRS Data Social research laboratory.

Economist Vívian Almeida, a professor at Ibmec-RJ, recalls that domestic workers were heavily affected by the pandemic due to social isolation measures and the impossibility of working remotely.

Now, there is a recomposition of vacancies in the wake of the economic recovery, says Almeida. “It was a very affected job, and the resumption is not linear.”

For Mário Avelino, president of Instituto Doméstica Legal, the pandemic had a disruptive effect on the sector.

“Right at the beginning of the crisis, fear of contamination was the main reason for so many layoffs. Then, with the closure of several companies, many entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals were left without income and unable to keep a maid at home.”

The home office also led to an important change in behavior on the part of employers. Spending more time at home and keeping their distance, families invested in home appliances to facilitate home care.

According to Avelino, domestic work will need to adapt to the consequences of the pandemic. “The hybrid model has become a reality for many families that previously had a domestic worker, and many of these people ended up saying that they no longer want someone fixed, they prefer a day laborer.”

He defends the importance of the monthly worker who became a day laborer continuing to contribute to Social Security.

“Some have the illusion that it’s better not to be fixed, but the informal ones stop contributing and lose all rights. The self-employed can spend little and continue contributing to their retirement. The reward comes later.”

In the quarter up to October, domestic work generated an average real income of R$ 903 for those who worked without a formal contract in the country, according to the IBGE. The amount is similar to that verified in the same period of 2019 (BRL 914).

In the case of workers with a formal contract, the average income was BRL 1,486 until October of this year, 4.7% below the same pre-pandemic range (BRL 1,560).

For economist Cosmo Donato, from LCA Consultores, there is a structural movement, even before the pandemic, to increase informal work — it became unfeasible for many families to support a fixed domestic worker.

He assesses that it is not correct to say that the so-called PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of Housemaids, which regulated work in the area, was negative, since the objective of the change in legislation was to increase the rights of workers, and not necessarily increase the number of people employed in this function.

Donato also claims that what can be done to reduce informality in domestic work is the creation of an integrated training program, so that these workers have the opportunity to work in other areas.

Segments of the so-called care economy, which tend to grow with the aging of the population, can be solutions for some of them.

“Informality is a problem and will always be the way out in times of crisis, but the long-term solution is to train the workforce to take advantage of the workforce in a dignified manner”, he adds.