The number of formal jobs in Brazil is counted annually by the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) and disclosed through the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS). RAIS gathers data on formal employment relationships in the country, and the information disclosed refers to active relationships until December 31, 2022.
To organize the information by forest activity, the National Forest Information System (SNIF) of the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB) defined a classification of the codes of the National Classification of Economic Activities (CNAE) used in RAIS publications related to the forest sector. To facilitate the presentation, this classification was grouped into main segments of the Brazilian forestry sector, allowing a clearer visualization of the data:
- Support activities for forest production: includes services related to felling, logging, and transporting logs, timber assessment, dendrometry, timber unloading, and services related to forestry and plant extraction;
- Pulp and paper: includes pulp manufacturing activities, paper products, printing and papermaking activities, carton board and paperboard;
- Wooden furniture, structures and crafts: includes the manufacture of predominantly wooden furniture, the production of floorboards, flooring, railroad ties, planks, ceiling panels, parquet flooring, wooden posts, and the processing of lumber;
- Forest production in native forests: includes extraction, felling, collection, charcoal production, and processing activities;
- Forest production in planted forests: includes cultivation activities, production of seedlings, bark, leaves and resins, extraction, felling and reforestation with tree felling.
The forestry sector generated approximately 800,000 formal jobs in 2022, registering a 15% increase in the number of active formal links between 2019 and 2022. The segment that employs the most since 2018 is the production of wooden furniture, structures and crafts. In addition, 196,000 jobs were generated in the furniture manufacturing sector, followed by the paper products manufacturing sector, with 127,000 jobs.
| Forest segment | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support for forestry production | 32,464 | 32,259 | 32,873 | 34,355 | 39,964 |
| Paper and pulp | 250,078 | 245,986 | 243,724 | 254,926 | 271,426 |
| Wooden furniture, structures and crafts | 334,710 | 323,794 | 335,596 | 357,907 | 373,814 |
| Forest production - native forests | 5,343 | 5,322 | 5,274 | 6,114 | 7,240 |
| Forest production - planted forests | 65,903 | 67,574 | 68,742 | 77,642 | 87,075 |
| Total | 688,498 | 674,935 | 686,209 | 730,944 | 779,519 |
Source: Annual Social Information Report/Ministry of Labor and Employment (RAIS/MTE, 2024).
Source: Annual Social Information Report/Ministry of Labor and Employment (RAIS/MTE, 2024).