Hot job market in Rio: in three years, 522 thousand people found formal or informal employment

The city of Rio registered more than 3,3 million employed cariocas, the highest employment in the job market since 2012 - Disclosure / City of Rio

The job market is booming in the city. The city of Rio reached the number of 3,3 million employed people in 2023, the highest in the historical series (since 2012). 522 thousand formal and informal jobs were created between the 4th quarter of 2020 and the 4th quarter of last year.

The figures were released by the Municipal Secretariat for Urban and Economic Development (SMDUE). Calculated based on information from the IBGE and the General Registry of Employed and Unemployed Workers (CAGED), from the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the study showed that the city of Rio has been experiencing a period of economic growth over the last three years.

– What generates jobs is a healthy economy, and we have seen that the economy of the city of Rio is booming. Over the last three years, there has been a huge list of actions, structural projects and initiatives that ultimately result in more investments and job creation for the people of Rio – highlighted Chicão Bulhões, Rio’s municipal secretary of Urban and Economic Development.

Still on the survey, unemployment in the city fell to the lowest level since 2016, registering a rate of 9,1% in 2023. The informality rate in the city is lower than in Brazil: in Rio, 33,7% of workers employed in the 4th quarter of 2023 were informal, against 39,1% in Brazil.

Carioca less vulnerable

According to the IBGE, people who are unemployed, underemployed, discouraged and unavailable for the job market are considered vulnerable. In the city, 327 thousand people left this situation in the period between the 4th quarter of 2020 and the last quarter of 2023.

The recovery in employment also occurred in relation to the quality of this occupation. Data from Caged, from the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), indicate that Rio de Janeiro generated 280,1 thousand new formal jobs (with signed employment contracts) between 2021 and March 2024. The services sector, the main segment of the Rio economy, was responsible for 75,6% of these vacancies.

Other sectors also saw growth in the number of new jobs, reinforcing the outlook for growth in Rio's economy in recent years. Construction was responsible for 10,7% of new jobs, while commerce and industry accounted for 8,6% and 5,2% of jobs created in this period, respectively.

The creation of new jobs has made the capital of Rio de Janeiro once again the second city in the ranking of cities with the highest generation of formal jobs in the country, behind only São Paulo. During this period, the city's new job openings represented 48,6% of all formal jobs created in the entire state of Rio de Janeiro.