Number of people who work and study rises in Brazil

Joca Oliveira Divulgação The share of Brazilian workers who both study and work rose to 15.1% in 2025 from 13.1% in 2019. The number of employed people gaining qualifications at the same time grew by 27% between 2019 and 2025, to 15.5 million, outpacing the increase among those who only work (8%). The data comes from a study using microdata from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua) Education, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The calculations were carried out by the corporate education platform Unico Skill and shared exclusively with Valor in advance. The routine of studying while working also increased among those with a university degree. In this group, the share of workers enrolled in some form of training rose to 16.3% in 2025, up from 13.3% in 2019. That represents 4.1 million workers out of 25.2 million at this level of education. Faster technological change, especially artificial intelligence, still-repressed demand for education, fiercer competition among workers amid the expansion of the population with university degrees, a stronger labor market, and the desire for higher income are among the reasons cited by specialists to explain the growth. “With the expansion of artificial intelligence, there is a drastic change in the roles performed and in the skills professionals need to have. Over the past two years, there has been very strong pressure for worker development. And this is not only among lower-skilled workers, but also among those with a university degree. Everyone is going back to school,” says Unico Skill CEO Joca Oliveira. In his view, the stronger labor market also contributes to the increase in the share of employed workers. As competition for qualified workers intensifies, one alternative companies have found is to invest in professional training, he says. “Many companies today are struggling to find enough qualified labor for open positions. We know of clients that need to waive the high school requirement to fill vacancies and then invest in that training.” Under IBGE’s classification, the concept is more restricted: students are people who attend school or day care, regular courses, technical courses, youth and adult education, undergraduate or higher-education specialization programs, master’s programs, or doctoral programs. The group therefore does not include those taking free courses, such as language or technology courses. The demands created by rapid technological change and the desire to earn more are behind this larger share of employed people studying, as well as a stronger labor market, according to Leandro da Rocha, a researcher at the Institute for Mobility and Social Development (IMDS). “When workers enter the labor market, they see people with more qualifications earning more. As a result, they want to keep climbing the income ladder. Also because of easier access to higher education, especially through distance learning, they seek qualification,” he says. For education researcher Guilherme Hirata, the increase in worker-students is explained less by a strong labor market and more by the continued demand for education in Brazilian society. “The movement has less to do with the stronger labor market and is more closely tied to still-repressed demand for education. There has been a very large expansion of higher education in recent years, with Fies, Prouni…,” he says. “The wage premium for those who complete higher education is still very high, even though it has fallen somewhat in recent years. So continuing to study is an attempt by people to differentiate themselves in the market and achieve higher income,” he adds. The Unico Skill study shows that employed workers who study earn more than those who only work across all age groups, except among those aged 18 to 24. The largest gap appears among people aged 50 or older: those who continue studying earn an average of R$5,193, 40% more than those who only work. Among those aged 18 to 24, people who only work earn R$1,951, 3.1% more than those who work and study (R$1,891). “The data shows that there is an important income gap when comparing workers who study with those who do not. Studying means more income for employees and a higher return for companies,” Oliveira says. While the increase in higher education among the overall population is clear in the statistics, the data also reinforces the greater participation of workers who continue studying; caution is needed when assessing the extent to which this will translate into greater productivity for the economy. That is the assessment of Leandro da Rocha, given the observed limitations in teaching quality across different proficiency indicators for some institutions. He says distance learning has brought greater flexibility for workers to continue their studies and lower costs, but caution is needed about potential future gains. Rocha recalls that Brazil’s average is 10.2 years of schooling among people aged 25 or older, compared with more than 13 years in developed countries. “The increase in education in Brazil is always welcome. But we have seen an explosion in distance learning, which now has more enrollments than in-person undergraduate programs. And the data shows, on average, lower-quality training and high dropout rates. So caution is needed to know whether this will in fact translate into improved productivity.” Translation: Todd Harkin