The 2010s in Brazil: a lost decade in the dimensions of production, productivity and labor

Abstract

The structure of the Brazilian labor market underwent substantial changes throughout the 2010s. The low unemployment scenario, with a predominance of the participation of formal employment, observed in the 2000s, progressively deteriorated due to: the deceleration of the pace of growth in Brazil at the beginning of the decade; the 2015-2016 recession; the slow and inexpressive recovery of the post-2017 period; and the health, economic and social crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Such factors contributed to the process of disruption of the labor market, in a context of reaffirmation of structural characteristics and recurrence of phenomena such as high informality, high rates of unemployment, and significant labor underutilization. As result, we observed another lost decade in national economic history in dimensions as production, productivity, and labor.

Keywords
Production; Productivity; Labor; Brazil