Brazil industry federation says millions of jobs will be lost to recession

A Brazilian industry federation says millions of workers will lose their jobs this year because of the recession that has hit Latin America's biggest nation.

The Rio de Janeiro State Federation of Industries Wednesday said a job market analysis it recently conducted shows that between 1.2 million and 1.6 million jobs will be lost in 2015 — the worst in 17 years.

Previously, the worst figures had been registered in 1998 when Brazil lost nearly 580,000 formal jobs.

"We don't see any signs of improvement in the short term," federation economist Marcelo de Avila told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

The government's Institute for Applied Economic Research said earlier this month that more 1 million formally registered workers could lose their jobs by the end of the year.