Crisis affected the more qualified foreigners in Brazil

An unprecedented survey by FGV’s Department of Public Policy Analysis (DAPP) and the Observatory of International Migration (OBMigra/UnB) based on data from the Ministry of Labor (MTE) indicates that the more qualified foreigners (higher education) were, in proportion, the most affected by the effects of the recent crisis in the Brazilian job market, still recording a negative balance between admissions and terminations (less 1,832 jobs in 2017, which accounts for 21% of admissions). According to the survey, engineers, for instance, have been losing ground to other administrative professions since 2013 (13.4% drop in the number of positions between 2013 and 2016), which may impact the production of new technologies, crucial to the country’s development.

An analysis of data from the General Register of Employed and Unemployed Persons (CAGED) from January 2011 to September 2017 clearly shows the effect of the recession on the job market since 2015, when the number of terminations surpassed the number of admissions, and practically remained as such until March this year. The crisis initially affected Brazilian workers, and unemployment among foreign workers increased only later, specifically from November 2015.

Such behavior is strongly associated with this decade’s main group of Brazilian immigrants: Haitians, who have integrated into low-skill occupations with high turnover, and therefore feature in the historical series with more explosive rapid growth behavior for terminations, which reverses to a more pronounced recovery than that of other groups, in relative terms. The balance for this group was positive in 2015, with 9,364 jobs, but had a negative balance of 9,288 positions in 2016. In 2017, the net creation of jobs for this group achieved 6,731 positions, considering data until September.

The data processed in this survey comes from the databases of the Work and Social Security Card (CTPS), the Annual List of Social Information (RAIS), and CAGED. The use of the CPF (Individual Taxpayer Registry) and PIS (Social Integration Program) was required for the connection between the databases via a common key. The main purpose for joining these databases is to improve the identification of foreigners in CAGED and study their movement in the job market.

As a result, one can obtain a historical series of the movements of foreigners in the job market, with drill-down to a series of variables, such as gender, age, education level, and nationality, among others.

Since October 2017, FGV’s DAPP and OBmigra/UnB have been combining efforts on content production to qualify the debate on migration in Brazil, focused on the joint analysis and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative data. This joint work provides for the preparation of publications on the job insertion of migrants according to their different profiles (refugees, humanitarian visa, among others), with a focus on the analysis of their occupations and qualification levels, as well as academic productions about the integration of migrants in the job market and migration profiles.

Go to the website to read the complete study.