Only 13% of young Brazilians want to work in manufacturing, survey shows
Just 12.7% of young Brazilians aged 16 to 21 say they’re willing to work in manufacturing, according to a survey by the Toyota Foundation conducted in partnership with consulting firm Teçá Impacto, which Valor obtained exclusively.
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The figure reinforces concerns about a lasting labor shortage in manufacturing and construction as young people lose interest in working in these sectors. But other findings in the survey point to how companies might respond.
According to the study, “O presente do trabalho: desafios e caminhos para empregabilidade das juventudes na era da IA” (“The Present of Work: Challenges and Paths to Youth Employability in the Age of AI”), despite this initial lack of interest, 62% of the same young people say they’re drawn to the stability of a job at a large company governed by Brazil’s Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), which carries full benefits and a degree of job stability.
Meanwhile, 18.4% of respondents say they want to start their own business within the next five years, while only 5% say they’d rather work as freelancers.
On this point, the survey pushes back against the assumption that most young people prefer entrepreneurship from an early age. Instead, the research suggests that other factors are driving them away from jobs in more traditional sectors.
Chief among them is a desire for flexible hours: 55.7% say they intend to prioritize jobs that let them work remotely or in a hybrid arrangement.
For Otacílio do Nascimento, executive director of the Toyota Foundation, the data point to a worrying reality for the future of Brazilian industry—but also suggest a path for companies in the sector to once again capture the aspirations of new generations of workers.
The first bright spot, he says, is that most young people still prefer jobs with the strongest legal protections. Although the services sector leads the country in overall employment, manufacturing has the highest rate of formal private-sector jobs relative to its total workforce of any industry—trailing only public-sector employment.
Nascimento also points to another key finding: 22.8% of young people say they want to work in technology, making it the most sought-after sector in the survey. The challenge, he notes, is that young people tend to associate technology with startups and digital-services companies rather than with the advanced technology used by automakers and other industrial firms, including those in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors.
“This is something manufacturing companies need to get better at. Industry needs to reposition itself, highlighting the advanced technology and stability it offers, in order to speak to this new generation of workers,” says the Toyota Foundation’s executive director.
He explains that one of Toyota’s strategies has been to position the brand as an urban-mobility solutions company, since the automaker—beyond manufacturing cars—now also rents vehicles directly to customers. That shift has allowed the company to expand the number of roles that permit remote work, and a culture of greater flexibility has spread to other departments within Toyota’s Brazilian operations.
In the factory floor areas, however, that flexibility still doesn’t exist, given the nature of jobs that require workers to be physically present during their shifts.
The foundation’s director believes Toyota and other automakers—along with other segments of the manufacturing industry—could do more to showcase the technology behind these jobs and the stronger working conditions they tend to offer compared with other sectors of the economy.
“The answer lies in creating a compelling experience for these young people within the organization—thinking about development and career paths for this new kind of industrial worker,” Nascimento says. “Obviously, that also means good salaries and benefits, but it’s important to show that factory jobs today aren’t just about pressing buttons anymore,” he adds. “A large share of today’s industrial companies are technology-driven and are adapting to modern concepts like the sharing economy.”
Otacílio do Nascimento, executive director of the Toyota Foundation, says data point to a worrying reality for the future of Brazilian industry
Nilani Goettems/Valor
