By Andre Soliani and Joshua Goodman
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s unemployment rate jumped the most in seven years last month as companies prepared to weather the first global recession since World War II.
Unemployment in Brazil’s six largest metropolitan areas rose to 8.2 percent in January from 6.8 percent in December, the national statistic agency said in a report distributed today in Rio de Janeiro. The rate was higher than the median forecast of 7.8 percent in a Bloomberg survey of 24 economists.
Brazilian companies are slashing output and staffing levels as the global financial crisis chokes demand and commodity prices plummet. Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, the world’s fourth-largest aircraft maker, yesterday said it will cut its workforce 20 percent. Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the world’s biggest iron-ore producer, fired 1,300 workers in December.
Policy makers next month will cut the benchmark rate by a full-point for a second straight time in a bid to revive Latin America’s biggest economy, according to the median forecast of 25 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Zero economic growth for 2009 may “soon start looking optimistic,” Morgan Stanley said in a report published Feb. 17.
Brazil’s consumer prices in the month through mid-February rose 0.63 percent, the national statistics agency said today in a separate report.
The inflation rate as measured by the benchmark IPCA-15 index increased from 0.40 percent through mid-January. It was in line with the 0.64 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 35 economists.
The yield on Brazil’s overnight futures contract for July 2009 slid two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 11.39 percent at 7:46 a.m. New York time. The yield on Brazil’s zero- coupon local-currency bonds due in January 2010 slid five basis points to 10.97 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andre Soliani in Brasilia at asoliani@bloomberg.net or Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro at Jgoodman19@bloomberg.net
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