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Brazil leads the ranking of spending on civil servants and provides broad stability, surpassing even developed countries. Amid criticism and political resistance, experts debate the urgent need for reforms to make the system more efficient.
With the world's highest spending on civil service and a system that offers broad stability for a variety of positions, Brazil occupies a unique and intriguing position on the global stage.
While most developed countries follow a more flexible model, where job stability is a privilege restricted to a few specific careers, such as judges and police officers, Brazil applies this protection to a variety of positions, from teachers and nurses to administrative functions.
This system generates heated debates and raises the question: is this model still sustainable?
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The weight of stability in Brazil
About 65% of Brazilian public servants have job security, a percentage that contrasts sharply with that of countries like Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom, where stability is granted only to a small portion of employees with “state power”, that is, those in positions essential to the governance structure.
According to a lifting of Folha de S. Paul, approximately 12,1 million Brazilians hold public office, the majority being statutory, governed by the Federal Public Servant Statute (Law 8.112/90), with strong protection against dismissals and specific benefits such as paid leave and automatic promotion.
According to research by Ministry of Labor and Employment, while countries like France They have a model similar to the Brazilian one, with greater stability than in other places, although the number of servers with this benefit is smaller and with limited advantages.
In many of these nations, when the budget needs adjustments or there are changes in the functions offered by the government, firing civil servants becomes an option — a possibility that is almost nonexistent in Brazil.
The “outlier” of benefits
FOR Humberto Falcon, specialist in public management at Dom Cabral Foundation, the Brazilian model is an “outlier” when it comes to stability in the public sector.
He argues that protection could be restricted to some essential functions, but not all. University professors, for example, are often cited as positions that could operate under a regime closer to that of the private sector, without absolute stability.
According to Falcão, this discussion is hampered by political factors and resistance from sectors that seek to keep these privileges intact.
In addition to stability, Brazilian public servants have their own pension schemes, different from the INSS, which ensure more advantageous conditions.
This includes benefits such as extended leave and automatic career progressions, even without effective performance evaluation, which highlights a lack of quality control in some roles.
Impasses in administrative reform
The attempt to adjust this system is not new. In 1998, during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, then minister Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira led a reform that aimed to limit stability to careers with “state power”.
However, according to Bresser-Pereira, the proposals were blocked by the “corporatism” of categories that defended the maintenance of advantages for the public sector in general.
This scenario persists to this day, with projects such as the regulation of performance evaluation, shelved in Congress for more than two decades.
According to a survey by Folha de S. Paulo, there is still a considerable obstacle to dismiss employees for poor performance or serious infractions: the disconnection rate is extremely low.
In 2015, for example, only 0,1% of servers was dismissed for disciplinary reasons or for not performing his duties adequately, as detailed in the study “The Federal Government’s HR Reform”, conducted by Ana Carla Abrao, Arminio Fraga and Carlos Ari Sundfeld.
Comparative structure of expenditure
Spending on public servants in Brazil is equivalent to 8,9% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a considerable figure compared to other countries.
Data International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that, among nine countries analyzed, only South Africa (12,6%) and Sweden (10,4%) have larger proportions.
In contrast, Latin American countries such as Chile (6,8%), Colombia (5,6%) and Mexico (3,8%), spend less, adopting more flexible hiring structures and a smaller number of stable employees.
Although Brazil has a lower number of public servants in relation to the total number of people employed and its population when compared to other countries, the high expenditure reflects the weight of the guarantees extended to civil servants.
Second Daniel Duke, from the Center for Public Leadership, the lack of flexibility in the Brazilian public sector hinders the possibility of redistributing employees according to the demands of each area.
“With the aging of the population, we will need more doctors and nurses and fewer teachers,” Duque points out, warning about the rigidity in personnel management.
The impacts of stability in public service
For many experts, the stability regime in Brazil limits the efficiency and innovation within the public service.
Bruno Carazza, author of “The Country of Privileges”, argues that Brazil could move forward with an administrative reform that would make careers less bureaucratic and more aligned with the real needs of the population.
“It is essential to evaluate the impact of technology, map careers and promote adjustments to avoid unnecessary new hires,” he says.
According to World Bank, although Brazilian public service salaries are high when compared to those in the national private sector, they are only globally competitive in certain areas.
The highest incomes are concentrated in judiciary and Legislative federal, while the lowest salaries are in municipal positions, which directly serve the population, such as teachers and social workers.
In municipalities, most civil servants receive less than BRL 5.000 per month, while in the federal government, income can exceed R $ 15 thousand.
The need for adjustments and internal resistances
Some changes have already begun. In recent years, states and municipalities have sought to reduce the number of positions with stability, increasing temporary and commissioned hiring, which has reduced spending on civil servants.
The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services also announced plans to review the 250 pay tables and the more than 300 career clusters, in search of a more rational structure adjusted to needs.
However, the issue of stability remains complex. Gabriela Lotta, a researcher at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, argues that, while some careers should maintain stability as protection against political pressure, others could adopt more flexible regimes.
She cites examples of tax auditors and environmental agents who, under strong government pressure, ensured that compliance with the law prevailed in emblematic cases, such as environmental restrictions during the Bolsonaro government.
The discussion about full stability in Brazil is still at an early stage, especially when compared to other nations where profound reforms have been implemented to increase the efficiency and flexibility of the public sector.
However, there are questions about the viability of a comprehensive change in a context marked by political and corporatist resistance.
Administrative reform, a possible path?
Brazil is at an impasse over the future of public service tenure, and prospects for reform face significant resistance.
With a robust public sector and a stability structure that stands out globally, the country is moving towards an essential debate to adjust careers to the current demands of the population.
Will Brazil be able to restructure its public service in a way that balances job security with efficiency and administrative flexibility? Leave your comment!
Stability will be necessary until society stops electing **** scoundrels. One of Bolsonaro's first measures was to transfer the environmental manager of Ibama, who had fined him for illegal fishing, to the interior of Piauí. If he had not had stability, he would have been fired, as would all the employees of INPE, who monitored fires, who would have suffered the same fate. The madman would also have destroyed the Ministry of Health and the universities. The motto of people like this is “what is not for me, is against me”, a distortion of the biblical original “what is NOT AGAINST US, is for us” (Mark, 9).
In Brazil, moral harassment is common in public offices. Taking away job security will only help the mess to continue. Here in Manaus, it is not the civil servants who take public money; it is the overpriced outsourcing that takes it without a public tender.