EVOLUÇÃO RECENTE DO MERCADO DE TRABALHO DA CANA-DE-AÇÚCAR NO BRASIL (1995-2006)

The recent expansion of the sugar and ethanol industries has raised some concerns regarding a number of issues. One major concernis with the quality of employment, the level of remuneration, the presence of child labor, the low qualification of the workers,informality and the high presence of temporary workers, among others. The objective of this study is to analyze the main employmentcharacteristics in this sector to establish whether, in fact, its expansion will cause a deterioration of employment quality in the country.The work is based on information obtained from government databases (RAIS and PNAD). In the case of agricultural activities, thesugar cane labor market is compared to that of other cultures: soybean, maize, rice, meat, etc. And in the case of industrial activities(plants), the comparison is made with the food industry and some specific segments. The main results of this work show that, ingeneral, employment in the sector presents better indicators than the comparison sectors. Therefore, according to the results, theexpansion of the sugar and ethanol sector will not deteriorate the quality of employment in the country.