Search for Companies Specialized in Layoffs Grows in Brazil

05/11/2015 - 09h52

"We are restructuring the company and your position has been eliminated. We will need another functional structure for your activities. We thank you for your participation."

Variations on this message have become a ghost haunting thousands of Brazilian workers and a mantra in the mind of the executives of companies specialized in layoffs since the crisis led to escalating unemployment in Brazil.

While the economy is slowing down, raising unemployment rates, there are some who make a profit out of the situation: the outplacement companies - those specialized in what they call "professional transition", as well as in layoffs, a less euphemistic term and more adequate to the current context.

The service is hired by companies that intend to fire one or more employees and are searching for help to draw up a way of informing them of the bad news. The companies also offer psychological support and help fired employees find a new job during a period of up to one year.

The employer himself is responsible for choosing and telling those who will be sacked.

The goal is to carry out "less traumatic layoffs," says Marshal Raffa, the director of Thomas Case, whose contracts have risen more than 50% since the beginning of 2014.

"It's responsible firing," says Raffa, using words like "embracement" and "raising awareness."

At the current moment, considered by outplacement executives one of the worst layoff waves they have had, cuts involve costs in expenditure and search for operational efficiency.

Companies have been increasing layoffs more dramatically now than during the 2009 crisis, says Rafael Souto, the executive president of Produtive, which has registered a 25% increase in outplacement contracts in the first quarter of 2015 in comparison with the same period in 2014.

In the first quarter of 2015, 50,300 people were fired. In the same period of 2009, the number reached 26,600. The unemployment rate in Brazil was 7.9% in the first quarter.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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	Karime Xavier/Folhapress
	Marshal Raffa, director of Thomas Case, a company specialized in "professional transitions"