Service sector was the top source of jobs in February

Numbers from Caged [Register of Employed and Unemployed Persons] continues to show that the job market has recovered and is now growing again, with the country adding 61,100 formal jobs in February.

Five of the eight sectors surveyed had positive results in February, chiefly driven by services (65,900 new jobs filled). This is an important measure of the strength of the job market, since the sector is one of the most important thermometers of the economy.

The manufacturing industry came next, with 17,300 new formal jobs added in February (up 0.24% from the previous month), followed by the public administration (9,500 posts), industrial services (629 posts) and extractivism (315 posts).

Regions

The per-region breakdown of the data also shows that the recovery of the job market is widespread. Out of the five regions of the country, four had positive employment numbers (i.e. hired more than they fired).

The best performance was seen in the South, with an increase of 37,000 jobs. The Southeast came in second with 35,000 formal job openings, followed by the Midwest (14,400) and the North (638 posts).

Labour modernisation

One of the bets to boost employment in the coming years, the changes to the labour code are already paying off, the Caged shows. In February, a little more than 2,000 job openings were for intermittent jobs - i.e. jobs that are not constant, in which there can be periods of hard work and others without much activity. The new law makes this modality safer for employers and employees.

An additional 3,000 new jobs were created in the "partial contract" modality. These contracts previously did not allow workers to do overtime, which was changed in the new law. Finally, home office contracts began seeing initial adoption in the market. Albeit less common than other modalities, this type of employment had a positive balance of 199 jobs in the period, especially in the services and trade sectors.