More on Brazil Cost. This Time: Salaries

This Exame article talks about a very relevant issue for business owners in Brazil – cost of labor. Employee overhead taxes are the highest in the world. The silver-lining is probably that the actual salaries are much lower than, lets say, in the USA. One thing to be aware of, however, is that there are various rules that require hiring a minimum amount of people (which could be much higher than actually needed). A tour at a local shopping mall highlights this very clearly – the shops have more attendants than customers. What I heard was that there is a person-per-retail-square-meter requirement.

So one’s math cannot be average salary * number of employees. It should be something like average salary * 1.6 (at least) * max (number of employees, minimum legal headcount requirements).
http://exame.abril.com.br/economia/noticias/brasil-lidera-ranking-de-impostos-sobre-trabalhadores

Posição	País	Custo extra para salário de US$ 30 mil por ano	Percentual sobre salário
1º	Brasil	US$ 17.267	57,56%
2º	Itália	US$ 15.544	51,84%
3º	França	US$ 12.836	42,79%
4º	Eslováquia	US$ 10.560	35,20%
5º	República Tcheca	US$ 10.200	34%
6º	Espanha	US$ 10.020	33,40%
7º	Áustria	US$ 9.357	31,19%
8º	China	US$ 9.263	30,88%
9º	Romênia	US$ 8.421	28,07%
10º	*Japão	US$ 7.738	25,79%
11º	*Alemanha	US$ 7.263	22,81%
12º	*México	US$ 6.788	22,63%
13º	Rússia	US$ 6.319	21,06%
14º	*Austrália	US$ 5.249	17,50%
15º	Holanda	US$ 4.867	16,22%
16º	Israel	US$ 4.221	14,07%
17º	Malásia	US$ 3.804	12,68%
18º	Nigéria	US$ 3.600	12%
19º	Irlanda	US$ 3.225	10,75%
20º	*Canadá	US$ 2.745	9,15%
21º	*Estados Unidos	US$ 2.652	8,84%
22º	Reino Unido	US$ 2.486	8,29%
23º	Emirados Árabes	US$ 2.182	7,26%
24º	Dinamarca	US$ 1.632	5,44%
25º	Índia	US$ 1.101	3,67%
Média dos BRICs		US$ 8.488	28,29%
Média global		US$ 6.757	22,52%

Source: Exame

Inocentes de Belford Roxo – Parading at Sambodromo

As promised, added some pictures. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to take them during the parade but watching everyone getting ready to line up was quite cool as well!

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Carnaval in Sambodromo

My list of things to do before I die is officially one item shorter. I participated in the Carnaval parade in Rio de Janeiro. Those samba school guys are damn creative!!!

much nicer photos can be seen here:
http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/carnaval/2013/fotos/2013/02/fotos-desfile-da-inocentes-de-belford-roxo.html

But here is one I took!

Carnaval is in town

The first day of Carnaval in Rio brought even more happiness to my life. Starting from a “cool” bloco in Gavea (beautiful, sweaty people), to some improvised block party at the center of action in Leblon (which was raided by the police), ending at a family-oriented clown bloco in Laranjeiras where I ended up dancing Xuxa songs while been sprayed with foam and confetti!

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Groupthink of the week: Team Lunch

Situation: team lunch with the boss. The boss keeps complaining that the prices of the menu items went up by a lot, repeating the same thing again and again for about 20 mins and telling the waiter that soon they will close down as no one will be willing to pay so much. He then proceeds to order the cheapest dish on the menu – chicken something. All three other colleagues in their turn order chicken as well, repeating the boss’ complaints and making angry faces. My turn comes as well, and I really want to ask for the steak, not caring to pay the extra five bucks. Then, I stop for a moment, remember that sometimes it’s better think a bit more long term and maintain my relationships. Suppressing my rebel tendencies, I then order the chicken as well.