26,000 LAYOFFS IN BRAZIL. Alarm in shoe factories.
In the April 28 statement, the Brazilian Association of Footwear Industries -ABICALÇADOS- reported that between 23 March and 28 April the of current year, 26,500 jobs were lost in major industrial poles across the country. The state with the biggest losses was São Paulo with 7,900 layoffs, followed by Rio Grande do Sul with 7.6 thousand jobs and Minas Gerais with 5 thousand unemployed.
The entity's executive president, Haroldo Ferreira, said that the result is due to the sharp fall in orders of March and April because of the coronavirus pandemic. "In addition to the shops closed, without making new orders, we had problems with payments and cancellations, including exports," said the leader, underlining that a 22.5% drop in world footwear consumption is estimated throughout 2020.
ABICALÇADOS investigations reveal that the sector will shrink at least 49% in the second half of the year compared to the same period last year. This decrease coupled with a decline of 14.2% in the first three months of the year, should be a retraction of 31.8% in the first half.
The organization recalled that after a positive estimate released in early 2020, growth of 2.5%, the crisis caused by the pandemic caused expectations to change for a drop of 26% compared to 2019.
In addition to the impact on the Brazilian trade, exports of footwear were also affected. After a decline of 8.5% in the first quarter compared to the same period of last year, shipments should fall, at least 46.4% in the second quarter, according to ABICALÇADOS projections.
With these data, the first semester may show a drop of 23.2%, with a final retraction for the whole year of 27.3%, always in relation to the same period of 2019.
Source: ABICALÇADOS
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