Brazil's economy created 165,827 formal jobs in August, the Ministry of Labor and Employment reported on Tuesday (29). In practical terms, nearly 166,000 people landed a registered position in a single month, which in Brazil means a signed work card and rights such as paid vacation, a Christmas bonus and the FGTS severance fund. The figures were released less than a week before the first round of the presidential election.
The balance came from 2,294,563 hires against 2,128,736 dismissals, according to the federal government. The month beat August 2025, when 154,800 jobs were created. Folha de S.Paulo puts the annual increase at 7.2%, roughly 11,000 more formal jobs than a year earlier.
What the Caged is
The Caged is the labor ministry registry in which companies report every hiring and firing of a formal worker. It therefore tracks only signed-contract employment and leaves out informal workers. It differs from the unemployment rate calculated by the IBGE, Brazil's statistics agency, which fell to 5.3% in the quarter through August, also released on Tuesday.
Where the jobs were
Services accounted for 110,346 of the new positions, about two thirds of the month's total. Construction (+20,848), industry (+16,613) and retail (+16,565) followed. Farming created 1,452 jobs, driven by sugarcane, orange and melon crops, according to Folha.
Within services, education added 25,400 jobs, health and social assistance 19,100, and transport and postal services 16,800. The average real starting wage stood at R$ 2,410.74, nearly flat from July and 1.02% higher in real terms than the R$ 2,386.43 of August 2025. Workers hired in August earn about R$ 24 a month more, after inflation, than those hired in the same month last year.
The picture for the year is weaker. From January to August, Brazil created 1.134 million formal jobs, down 25.2% from the 1.516 million opened in the same period of 2025. Folha reports it is the worst January-August balance since 2020, the first pandemic year, and each month from April to July also posted its weakest result for the period since then.
Over 12 months, the balance is 887,700 jobs, up 1.87%, and the total stock of formal contracts reached 48.24 million. Nearly all states added jobs, led in absolute numbers by São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco. In relative terms Paraíba, Amapá and Rio Grande do Norte led, while Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and Rondônia ended the month in the red, Folha reported.