IBGE president criticizes self-employment and says capitalism is suffering “agony”

The president of the IBGE, Márcio Pochmann, stated that Brazilian capitalism is suffering from “regression” and “agony” due to the rise of self-employment in the country. The criticism was made based on a Datafolha survey published last week that revealed that 59% of people prefer to work for themselves, while only 39% opt for formal employment.

The survey showed that the preference for work without a CLT is even greater among young people aged 16 to 24, reaching 68%. According to Pochmann, the data reveal what, in his view, would be a weakening of the traditional employment model in the country.

“The interest of Brazilians in self-employment, surpassing salaried employment, seems to reveal the regression — not to say the agony — of capitalism in Brazil,” he stated in an article published on a social network this weekend.

Datafolha interviewed 2,004 people in 136 Brazilian cities between June 10 and 11. The margin of error is 2 percentage points.

The survey also revealed that the preference for self-employment is greater among supporters of former presidentJair Bolsonaro (PL), at 66%, than among voters of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), at 55%.

The preference of a considerable part of the Brazilian population for self-employment and entrepreneurship has become one of the main difficulties in dialogue with Lula. Historically, the party has always defended hiring under CLT and criticized what it claims is a lack of guarantees for workers.

However, the speech ended up alienating this segment of the population and made Lula back down and start stating in his speeches the need to create policies to support small entrepreneurs. Last year, he launched Acredita, a program that offers external credit lines including for beneficiaries of the Single Registry (CadÚnico) – “people want to be free,” he said in an interview in February.

On the other hand, Pochmann – appointed by Lula to the IBGE – criticized the replacement of the formal employment relationship with the search for alternative sources of income, whether through informal work, small businesses or even social benefits.

He warns that the emptying of formal jobs weakens institutions such as unions and associations, which, according to him, worsens social problems.

“A reality that imposes itself,” he summarized in his article.

The president of IBGE also argued that the growth of self-employment should not be seen as a choice for entrepreneurship, but as a reflection of the difficulty of accessing formal jobs in the country – also contradicting the government's official discourse that the country is experiencing a scenario of full job creation.