Agribusiness added 37K new jobs in 2017

Last year's record harvest helped to consolidate agribusiness as one of the main employers in Brazil, having generated more than 37 thousand new jobs (the best result since 2011). These figures reflect Brazil's intense development in the agribusiness segment: our farmers transformed the field into far more than farms and, with technology and research, became responsible for one of the largest food industries in the world.

“Farmers invested heavily in technology for the 2016/2017 crops and were rewarded with excellent weather conditions, which guaranteed a record-breaking 238 million tonne harvest," said the coordinator of the Economic Department at the National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), Renato Conchon. "It showed the importance of the Brazilian agricultural sector for society and for the Brazilian economy.”

The aggregated employment figures from last year, obtained through the Caged (a monthly publication by the Ministry of Labour that tracks the evolution of formal employment in the country), reinforced the role of agribusiness as a crucial sector for both the country's economy and job market. Among individual segments, fruit tree planting was the top source of new openings, adding 20.6 thousand new jobs in 2017.

A welcome boost

Agribusiness also played a key role in the rise of Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year. The sector was one of the main drivers of that increase, growing 13% compared to 2016 and injecting almost R$ 300 billion in the economy.