IBGE: Workers in Unions Halt Decline

The percentage of unionized workers increased from 2023 to 2024, interrupting a downward trend in Brazil, but remained far from the level of the early 2010s, before the labor reform. Data from the Continuous PNAD (National Continuous Household Sample Survey) released on Wednesday (19) by IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) indicate this. Out of the total of 101.3 million people aged 14 or over engaged in formal or informal work in 2024, almost 9.1 million were associated with unions, equivalent to 8.9%. This represents a 0.5 percentage point increase from 2023, when the proportion had reached a minimum of 8.4%. The increase in 2024 was the first in the historical series that began in 2012. The unionization rate had been declining for six consecutive years in the PNAD (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023). Data collection was not carried out in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and IBGE only counted one year of stability (2015). Even with the rise in 2024, the 8.9% level is the second lowest in the series. In 2012, the first year of the survey, the proportion was 16.1% – the highest ever recorded. According to William Kratochwill, an analyst at IBGE, it is possible that a portion of workers realized the need to rejoin entities to pursue their rights last year.