Data released by the Ministry of Labor and Employment indicate that 85,888 formal jobs were created in April. The figure reflects the difference between hiring and layoffs.

The total is 62.3 percent lower than in March, when the country created 227,974 jobs.

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Job creation fell 63.9 percent compared with April last year, pressured by high interest rates and the economic slowdown. In the same month of 2025, 238,216 jobs were generated.

Among the months of April since 2020, this was the second-lowest result in the series, surpassed only by April 2020, when 981,342 jobs were lost at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in methodology prevent comparisons with years prior to 2020.

Sectors

By division by sector of activity, three of the five sectors surveyed created formal jobs in April.
• Services: +69,601 jobs
• Construction: +23,525 jobs
• Industry (manufacturing, extraction, and other activities): +9,256 jobs

Two sectors shed more jobs than they generated in April: agriculture, with a loss of 8,378 jobs, and commerce, with 8,114 fewer jobs.

Traditionally, April is a weak month for commerce. In agriculture, the layoffs are due to the end of the soybean harvest and the demobilization of apple and orange crops.

Formal contract

With the creation of new jobs, the number of workers with formal contracts ended April at 47,810,425, an increase of 0.18 percent compared with March and 2.26 percent compared with the same month last year.

The Brazilian economy grew 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the last quarter of 2025. Over the past 12 months, there was a two percent expansion.

The gross domestic product (GDP) was announced Friday morning (May 29) by the statistics bureau IBGE.

Compared to the same period last year, GDP growth stands at 1.8 percent.

In current values, Brazil’s GDP reached BRL 3.3 trillion in the first quarter, approximately USD 646 billion.

Sectors

Comparing the two consecutive quarters, the three sectors surveyed showed growth – agriculture (2%), industry (1%), and services (0.5%).

Industry accounted for 23 percent of GDP in the first quarter. Within the sector, the activities that most drove growth were mineral extraction (3.6%) and construction (2.9%).

The services sector, which accounts for 70 percent of the Brazilian economy, was driven by growth in information and communication (2.4%), real estate (1.2%), other service activities (0.8%), and trade (0.6%).

Household consumption expenditure (1%) and gross fixed capital formation (3.5%), which measures the level of investment, were also on the rise. Government consumption rose 0.4 percent.

Exports fell by 1.7 percent, while imports went up 4.4 percent.