Rio de Janeiro – The service sector grew more than the economy of Brazil in 2008. While the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 5.1%, non-financial services registered growth of 18.8% in net operating revenues, which rose from 572 billion reals (US$ 321.6 billion) in 2007 to 680 billion reals (US$ 382 billion) in 2008, which represented real growth of 13.1%, discounting inflation in the period.
The figures are part of the 2008 Annual Service Research, disclosed on Wednesday (25) by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). According to the study, Brazil had 879,691 service companies in 2008, growth of 10% over 2007 (793,928 companies), except for those connected to the financial area. The sector was responsible, two years ago, for generation of 9.23 million jobs, against 8.37 million in 2007, expansion of 860,000 posts.
The sector that was most prominent was information and communication services, which covers telecommunications, information technology, audiovisual services, edition, news agencies and information services.
In 2007, the sector employed 687,000 people, rising to 726,000 in the following year, with the creation of 39,000 posts. Revenues with information and communication services in 2008 were 203.5 billion reals (US$ 114 billion), representing 29.9% of the total, against 178.1 billion reals (US$ 100 billion) in 2007 – growth of 14.2%.
The sector that registered the greatest number of people employed was the professional, administrative and complementary sector, which employed 39.5% of all the personnel, or 3.6 million people. In the same way, it was also the sector that generated the highest volume of salaries, 44 billion reals (US$ 25 billion), against 22 billion reals (US$ 12.5 billion) in the information and communications service sector which, however, registered the highest average wage: 7.4 minimum salaries.
*Translated by Mark Ament
