Since the beginning of the pandemic and until June of this year, 172,600 jobs were destroyed, but 208,900 were created, according to a barometer from the Observatory on Crises and Alternatives, which will be released soon and advanced this Saturday by the agency Portuguese

The destruction of employment mainly affected younger and precarious workers, who have not yet managed to recover, as most of the jobs created were in workers over 45 years old, shows the analysis of the observatory of the Center for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra based on data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

During a pandemic, a job destruction for gender-differentiated, having affected 3.4% of employed men and 3.8% of women, and also according to age, since it excluded 18.6% of workers up to 24 years old and 7% of workers aged between 25 and 34 years old.

For its part, indicates the observatory, job destruction affected workers aged between 35 and 44 less (4.5%) and people aged between 45 and 54 years (1.2%).

Based on data on social security discounts for the 4th quarter of 2019, the CES also concludes that it was large companies (more than 250 workers) that most removed workers (51% of the decline) since the beginning of the pandemic .

By region, most jobs destroyed were located in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Lisbon (32.9%), in the Center (28.9%), North (19.6%) and Algarve (9.2%).

According to the document, most of the destroyed jobs were in the service sector (76.6% of the total), mainly in commerce (34.6%), in accommodation and restaurants (23.5%) and in public administration (9.9%).

Disconfinement fostered employment

The resumption of employment started in the 2nd quarter of 2020, with the progressive reopening of activity after the first general confinement decided in March to contain the pandemic.

“As a whole, and comparing the figures for the 1st quarter of 2020 with those for 2021, there was a net creation of 208.9 thousand new jobs, that is, a figure already higher than that recorded in the 2nd quarter of 2019”, typical of the observatory’s researchers.

For this increase, salaried employment (72.7% of the total) contributed, especially permanent contracts (80%).

The rise in employment from the 2nd quarter of 2020 took place with a majority of women (51%) and with older workers.

About 89% of the jobs created corresponded to workers over 45 years old, while young people up to 24 years old corresponded to 6.7% of the net new job and employees between 25 and 34 years old to 8.6%.

“Thus, the jobs of young people up to 34 years old destroyed by a pandemic are far from being replaced by the recovery”, conclude the researchers.

These two brackets lost, respectively, 14% and 17.9% of their employment and recovered by the 3rd quarter of 2021, respectively, 7% and 1.6%, “without major beneficiary of the employment recovery”.

More than half of the recovery in employment (54%) took place in large companies.

State “played an important role”

The Lisbon Metropolitan Area has not been able to fully recover the lost jobs, unlike the Center and North regions, which have seen employment rise.

Among the activities that have fully recovered as they lose their jobs are manufacturing, transport and storage, and the financial sector.

The CES also highlights that “the State played a relevant role in job recovery”, since of the total of 208,900 new jobs created, 59% related to activities that are usually considered public functions, such as the case of public administration, defense and security (another 49.3 thousand), education (another 44.1 thousand) and health and social support (another 29.9 thousand). .

“Without these activities, the recovery of employment would have been 98.2% of the values ​​of the reference employment of the 2nd quarter of 2019”, exm the researchers.

The “fragile” recovery, references the CES, did not reach activities such as agriculture, animal production and fisheries, construction, trade and food, accommodation and catering, real estate activities and administrative activities to support companies.

The values ​​of economic recovery were also benefited by the situation of various activities that, since the beginning of the pandemic until now “have not lost jobs”, such as the information and communication sector, consulting, scientific and technical activities.

As for salaries, the observatory indicates that total gross salaries have registered “a slight improvement” at least since 2017, data from which INE started to publish these statistics. .

However, “their common values ​​(with the consumer price index at June 2021 prices, estimated by INE) show relative stability, with a long rise over the period, with no real gains obtained”, he stresses the observatory.

This “upward trend” in nominal wages was interrupted in the 1st quarter of 2020, following the closing of the economy to fight the pandemic, and in the 1st quarter of 2021 as a result of a new wave of the pandemic, until it occurred feel the effects of widespread vaccination of the population.

“In any case, the average salary levels remain low for a long time”, can be read in the document.

Low-paid activities, which account for more than half of the jobs, show greater difficulty in recovering pre-pandemic employment levels.

“It is true that part of this difficulty has to do with the reduced ability to carry out work remotely, thus being forced to stop or limit their activity”, concludes the observatory.