Brazilian Stock Exchange (Bovespa) have the largest fall of the last two weeks

The Ibovespa, index that measures the price variation of the main shares traded on the Bovespa dropped 1.11% yesterday, April 3, 2019. The market saw with pessimism the statement of Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, who said that he will not assume the position of articulator of the Pension Reform in the Brazilian National Congress.

Also yesterday, the IMF reduced Brazil's GDP forecast in 2019. According to the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, Brazil's GDP growth forecast is now 2.1% in 2019. The forecast made in January 2019 by the same IMF was that the Brazilian GDP would grow around 2.5% this year.

In the Bolsonaro administration, there is no economic development plan for the country. Economy Minister Paulo Guedes believes growth will only come after the approval of the Pension Reform. However, several Brazilian economists like Nelson Marconi and Paulo Feldmann believe that the government should adopt other measures, in addition to the Pension Reform, to combat unemployment in the country.

The same IMF report pointed out that Venezuela's GDP fell by 18% in 2018 and should fall 25% in 2019. As a result of these declines, Venezuela's economy in 2020 will be almost half of what it was in 2017.

The inflation forecast by the IMF for Argentina in 2019 is 43.7%. Because of this, the IMF decided to release a US $ 10.8 billion pass-through to the Macri government, which was unable to resolve the economic crisis and faced a decline in its popularity. Over the past six months, some 2.7 million Argentines fell under the category of poor and destitute. In total, there are already 12.9 million poor and indigent people in the country with just over 44 million inhabitants.

The number of poor people in Brazil grows

According to the World Bank, the crisis that hit Brazil between 2014 and 2017 increased from 17.9% to 21% the percentage of Brazilians living with less than US$ 5.50 per day.

In addition, the poor economic performance of Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, coupled with the very serious situation in Venezuela, led the World Bank to revise its expectation of Latin American economic growth in 2019 to 0.9%.

In Brazil, the picture of increasing misery pointed out by the World Bank is compounded by high unemployment rates.

A survey by the Center for Management and Strategic Studies (CGEE) of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications pointed out that the number of Brazilians with unemployed PhDs reaches 25%. In the world, the unemployment rate of this group is around 2%. In Brazil, the unemployment rate among people with a master's degree reaches 35%.

In the semester closed in February 2019, unemployment in Brazil stood at 13.1%, according to data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). With 27.9 million underutilized workers, the underutilization of the workforce has reached a record in the IBGE's history series.