The “legacy” of 100,000 unemployed workers

Rio de Janeiro suffers with the end of the works of Olympic Games and with the crisis of the country and reaches the highest level of unemployment in the industry of civil construction

Rio de Janeiro is going through a difficult moment of post-olympic “hangover” of 2016 games: the demobilization of labor used in the construction of installations to carry out the games, to build sporting installations and to play the games would generate approximately 100,000 unemployed people. This number is confirmed by Luis Fernando dos Santos Reis, president of the Association of Engineering Companies of Rio de Janeiro. In his opinion, this large number of unemployed people has no option of new job in the area in short and medium terms.

“The level of heavy construction unemployment in Rio de Janeiro is very high”, says him. He also remembers that the state had a boom of works along the last 10 years, higher than any other state. “The situation is dramatic”, says him, pointing that there is no perspective of restarting investments by the government and there are bureaucratic obstacles for private works that could mitigate the crisis of employment in civil construction.

Abrahão Roberto Kauffmann, president of Sinduscon/RJ remembers the effects of the crisis on the construction in the country along the last two years. He shows the numbers of the National Union of Heavy Construction Industry (Sinicon). “In the last 24 months (between October, 2014 and October, 2016) Brazil had a reduction of 2.38 million workplaces. From this total, 788 thousand workplaces (33.1 percent) were lost in construction (heavy + buildings and installations). In heavy construction, 322.7 workplaces (13.6 percent of the total losses in the country) were lost. After the Olympic Games, 30 to 35 thousand workers of civil construction became unemployed”, says him.

According to Kauffmann, the Federal Government shows a real interest in helping the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, to go out of the current state of public disaster. The public-private partnerships (PPP) that are being studied may be an important action in this sense.

“And the private initiative may also contribute in generating workplaces through the investments in mixed-use projects (popular commercial, residential [Program Minha Casa, Minha Vida – PMCMV] and commercial with areas for consulting rooms, offices, courses, leisure areas) along the Corridors of Urban Mobility  (Transolimpica, Transcarioca, Transoeste and Transbrasil) already concluded and operated with good public transport”, says him. He remembers that the works in the complex of Comperj are being started. Santos Reis says that the government has no program of new projects that could use this workforce. “The situation is dramatic”, points him.