Brazil created 58,568 formal jobs in July, the Ministry of Labor and Employment reported on Friday (28). That is a drop of 56.3% from the same month in 2025, when 133,900 payroll jobs were added. For anyone looking for work, the message is direct: less than half as many formal positions were left over this July compared with a year ago.

The net figure comes from 2.26 million hires against 2.2 million layoffs in the month, according to G1. It was the weakest July since 2020, when the country shed 108,500 jobs during the pandemic. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected a much stronger result, around 112,000 new positions.

Understand: what the Caged measures

The numbers come from the Caged, the federal registry of hirings and dismissals of workers with a signed employment card, Brazil's formal labor contract. The headline balance is the difference between entries and exits. Because informal and self-employed workers are left out, the data cannot be compared directly with the unemployment rate from statistics agency IBGE, which stood at 5.3% in the quarter through July, the lowest for that period since 2012.

Year to date is also the weakest since 2020

From January to July, the country added 972,200 formal jobs, the ministry said. The total is 21% below the same stretch of 2025, when 1.23 million positions were created, and it is the smallest January-to-July balance since 2020.

Even with the slower pace, the stock of formal jobs kept growing and reached 48.08 million at the end of July, up from 47.2 million a year earlier. Four of the five sectors of the economy added jobs in the month, and four of Brazil's five regions posted a positive balance.

The average starting salary was R$ 2,419.23 (about US$ 460), a real gain above inflation against both June (R$ 2,404.10) and July 2025 (R$ 2,370.85). In practice, those who did land a formal job entered with slightly more purchasing power than workers hired a year earlier.