MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's unemployment reaches sever-year high: 8.2%

Brazil unemployment rate in January jumped the most in seven years to 8.2% from 6.8% in December according to the country's national Statistics Agency. The jobless rate is based on Brazil six largest metropolitan areas.

Brazilian companies are trimming output and staffing as the global financial crisis erodes demand and commodity prices plummet. Embraer, the world's fourth-largest aircraft maker announced this week it was cutting its workforce by 20%. Brazilian President Lula da Silva last week said that some companies have overreacted to the global financial crisis in firing workers. Union leaders who met with Lula da Silva on Thursday said the president told them he planned to seek an explanation from Embraer over its planned job cuts. Lula da Silva said February 11 that the government will help build one million homes to provide jobs to workers in the construction industry. Additionally, the government has cut 8.4 billion Reales (3.5 billion US dollars) worth of taxes and injected 100 billion into the country's currency and money markets to stimulate growth. The combined efforts should help job creation rebound as early as March, Labour Minister Carlos Lupi said, after announcing that Brazil lost jobs in January for the first time in seven years during the month. Economists expect GDP growth of 1.5% in 2009, the slowest pace since 2003, when the economy expanded 1.2%, according to a weekly central bank survey of about 100 institutions taken on February 13. Brazil's consumer prices index in the month through mid-February rose 0.63%, the national statistics agency said in a separate report.