Oil And Gas Sector Sees Job Losses, According To FUP Survey

The Annual Average of Workers in the Oil and Gas Sector Fell 2.4% Between 2020 and 2021, According to FUP

A survey conducted by the Unified Federation of Oil Workers (FUP), based on the latest National Continuous Household Sample Survey (Pnad Contínua) from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), showed that, in the annual average of the quarters of 2021, the total number of workers in the oil and gas segment in Brazil fell by about 2.4%, which resulted in a decrease from 159,086 to 155,227 jobs. The data available in the survey was up to the third quarter of last year.

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The decline also occurred in the income of workers in the extraction area and respective supporting activities, which, according to the Pnad, suffered an average decrease of approximately 9.5% in their earnings.

Rafael Rodrigues da Costa, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies of Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels (Ineep), was the one who analyzed the data along with economists from the Center for Political Economy of Oil (Cepetro) Pedro Gilberto Cavalcante Filho and Claudiane de Jesus.

“The exit of Petrobras from some segments, and the consequent entry of private companies, has not yet produced positive effects either in the generation of new jobs or in the increase of income,” points out the FUP.

Beginning of the Contraction

Since 2015, Petrobras has made available for sale a total of 378 assets in the state of Bahia, which represents 31% of the oil company’s divestment portfolio. Currently, in the state, the decrease in jobs reached 28.9%, according to the average for 2021, compared to 2020. This number represents a contraction of 7,000 jobs (from 25,788 in 2020 to 18,328 in 2021), reported the FUP study.

In Salvador, the decrease in salaries in the oil and gas segment reached 22.9%, which means falling from an average income of approximately R$ 7,180.00, until the third quarter of 2020, to a remuneration close to R$ 5,140.00 in the same months of 2021.

The FUP points out that, although the coronavirus pandemic should also be taken into account as an important factor for the reduction of jobs, the contraction in the labor market in Bahia is a reality that has been happening since the beginning of Petrobras’ divestment program in 2015. This context was explained by Ineep researcher Rodrigues da Costa, based on IBGE data.

In the third quarter of 2015, the segment employed up to 37,890 people. Today, the oil sector in Bahia employs less than 8,760 jobs in the region, according to statistics from the third quarter of Pnad 2021. The data is visible when comparing the number of jobs in the oil and gas sector in Bahia to Petrobras’ divestment program.

“Declining employment and wages and rising consumer prices are adverse effects of the same phenomenon, which is the policy of creating regional private monopolies, resulting from the misguided sale of Petrobras assets,” stated the FUP’s General Coordinator, Deyvid Bacelar.