Brazil’s Job Market is Booming

As it begins preparations to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, Brazil - South America’s largest country and economy, is one of the first emerging markets to begin an economic recovery. With an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent, Brazil is experiencing job growth and talent shortages in many sectors.

Brazil’s strong recovery from the global financial crisis has spurred increased hiring activity and a buoyant employment market, enabling the job market to become increasingly candidate-driven. Many workers in the private sector are seeing double-digit pay raises, and last year average salaries in Brazil increased 6.5 percent.

Talent shortages persist in many of the growing industry sectors in Brazil. Recruiting professionals report infrastructure, oil, gas, consumer products, technology, financial services, and capital markets are the most in need of talent. Hiring in Brazil has been active across all sectors, with the heaviest volumes in FCMG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), manufacturing, agribusiness and heavy construction.

Especially scarce in Brazil are engineers with technical backgrounds, experience with big oil finds, and knowledge of infrastructure, but Brazil turns out just 35,000 engineers a year, compared with India’s 250,000 and China’s 400,000 engineers. “One problem Brazil is facing is that their companies and universities have not created sufficiently qualified people to satisfy the new demand,” explains Ms. Thompson. “Multinational organizations looking to hire in Brazil are seeking successful candidates who are flexible, skilled in communications between Brazil and headquarters, adaptable and multilingual. Although many companies invest in homegrown talent, there is also room for skilled foreign-born executives to work in Brazil.”

The talent shortages in Brazil have resulted in high salaries and large executive bonuses. Chief executives and company directors earn more in São Paulo, Brazil’s business capital, than in New York, London, Singapore or Hong Kong. For example, a CFO with 12 years’ experience or more can earn $400,000 to $530,00 USD in São Paulo, while a CFO with the same experience would earn approximately $125,000 USD in New York.

The 10 Jobs Most in Demand in Brazil

1. Technicians
2. Skilled trades
3. Production operators
4. Secretaries, PAs, administrative assistants and office support staff
5. Labourers
6. Engineers
7. Drivers
8. Accounting and finance staff
9. IT staff
10. Sales representatives

Best excuse for being late for work

An Amazonian tribe has been discovered that has no concept of time or dates, scientists have said. Professor Chris Sinha, of the University of Portsmouth, led the research which found that the Amondawa people of Brazil do not even have words for "time", "week", "month" or "year". In his study, published in the journal Language and Cognition, he argues that it is the first time scientists have been able to prove time is not a deeply entrenched universal human concept, as previously thought.

Prof Sinha said: "For the Amondawa, time does not exist in the same way as it does for us. We can now say without doubt that there is at least one language and culture which does not have a concept of time as something that can be measured, counted or talked about in the abstract.

"This doesn't mean that the Amondawa are 'people outside time', but they live in a world of events, rather than seeing events as being embedded in time."

Team members including linguist Wany Sampaio and anthropologist Vera da Silva Sinha, spent eight weeks with the Amondawa researching how their language conveys concepts like "next week" or "last year". There were no words for such concepts, only divisions of day and night and rainy and dry seasons. They also found nobody in the community had an age. Instead, they change their names to reflect their life stage and position within their society. For example a little child will give up their name to a newborn sibling and take on a new one.

Prof Sinha said: "We have so many metaphors for time and its passing - we think of time as a 'thing' - we say 'the weekend is nearly gone', 'she's coming up to her exams', 'I haven't got the time', and so on, and we think such statements are objective, but they aren't. We've created these metaphors and they have become the way we think. "The Amondawa don't talk like this and don't think like this, unless they learn another language. For these fortunate people time isn't money, they aren't racing against the clock to complete anything, and nobody is discussing next week or next year; they don't even have words for 'week', 'month' or 'year'. You could say they enjoy a certain freedom."

First contacted by the outside world in 1986, the Amondawa continue their traditional way of life, hunting, fishing and growing crops. But now along with modern trappings such as electricity and television, they have gained the Portuguese language, putting their own language under threat of extinction.