Spatial Pattern of Formal Employment Evolution - 1995-2003 (Padrao Espacial Da Evolucao Do Emprego Formal - 1995-2003)

Abstract

Other studies have already identified differences in the spatial pattern related to the evolution of important labor market variables. On the one hand, the behavior of the total level occupation seems to spatially neutral. On the other, the pattern for formal employment, as well as the degree of informality, is not. This is particularly true when it come to metropolitan versus non-metropolitan areas. These findings are based on the PNADs' national household surveys with stratified samples. This study tries to take advantage of another source of information, Rais, which constitutes an enumeration of the formal sector, to examine more closely what happened to formal employment between 1995 and 2003. First, the results support those findings, as there are evidences of differences both in time and spatial evolutions. There was a weak growth in formal employment, and even net destruction of jobs in the industry, in the first half of the period. From 1999 on, arguably as a consequence of the changes in the exchange rate regime, the rates of growth went up substantially. Second, a process of decentralization took place along the whole period, once again in a more pronounced fashion within the industrial sector. The metropolitan areas, led by the two major ones - Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro - lost a sizable share of formal employment, which renders the indications of PME, a monthly employment survey that covers six metropolitan areas, biased for the Brazilian labor market as a whole for this matter.