Rousseff: government strives to prevent rise of unemployment

President Dilma Rousseff said today (Jan. 15), during breakfast with journalists at the Palácio do Planalto, the presidential office, that the federal government strives to prevent the rise of unemployment. "The government's major concern is unemployment. We worry about it every day, it requires the government's attention. We care about the industries' sectors," she stated.

The Brazilian unemployment rate rose 9% in the 3-month period ended in October, reported the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). According to the survey, 9.1 million people looked for jobs but could not find during the 3-month period ended in October 2015.

Priorities

According to Rousseff, to improve employment rate, some measures are urgent, like the fiscal rebalancing for Brazil to recover growth. She defended the approval of the bill to bring back the old CPMF (Temporary Contribution on Financial Transactions) tax by Congress, the extension of the Untying of Union Revenue (DRU) and interest on own capital and capital gains.

"These three [measures] are essential for us to produce the primary [surplus] and achieve fiscal rebalancing. We need to reverse the situation that leads to lower economic activity, to ensure fiscal balance and recover growth", added Rousseff.

Petrobras

About Petrobras' situation, the president said the government will keep analyzing the oil price changes to decide the next steps.

"Lower price oil will significantly change the international economy. It is obvious that oil at lower levels will always be worrisome. We will decide the next steps based on the national and international scenario. We do not rule out that it will be necessary to carry out an evaluation if this process continues. "

According to the president, the oil issue is linked to the global economic recovery and that all countries will go through a "recovery process", from the moment when, due to the devaluation of foreign currencies and of the real, there are consequences not only for increasing exports, but also for internal input production.

"I believe that the oil price issue is embedded in many things in addition to Petrobras. It [Petrobras] has the strength to maintain itself. The firm produces oil at a very low price. It also has this expertise, the whole market knows that it produces at a low cost. Given this fact, it has adapted. It has decreased, for example, its investments. Not because it wants to do so. But if they had not, they would not survive. It has also adopted its measures," she reported.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta