City Profile

The city of Rio de Janeiro has almost seven million people and a GDP of approximately BRL 350 billion.

It is the second largest population and economy in Brazil among the capital cities.

It is the second largest economy in Brazil, representing 5.2% of the Brazilian GDP.

If Rio were a country, it would have a population greater than nearly half the countries in the world and would be the 65th largest economy.

• Population: 6.8 million people;
• Inhabitants in the workforce: 3.6 million;
• GDP growth: 3.9% (2022);
• Per Capita GDP: BRL 54.4 thousand (2020).

In 2022, 80.3% of new formal jobs created in the city were in the service sector, 4.7% in industry and 3.7% in construction;

In the two-year period 2021/2022, Rio once again became the second capital generating more formal jobs in Brazil, second only to the city of São Paulo;

In average, between January 2021 and 2022, Rio generated 7.9 thousand new jobs per month, which is equivalent to 189.5 thousand in the accumulated period of 24 months. Maintaining this growth pace, the city should generate, in the period since 2021, approximately 285,000 new formal jobs in 2023, and 380,000, in 2024, after losing 107,700 job positions in 2020 with the pandemic;

According to IBGE’s (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) data, the economic activity in Brazil and Rio is highly concentrated in the service sector (73.5% in Brazil, 75.7% in the State of Rio de Janeiro and 86.5% in the Municipality of Rio). The service sector is marked by a high degree of diversity, covering areas such as public administration, rentals, commerce, telecommunications, transport, as well as services to companies and families.

For more information, access the Rio Tech Report 2023, by Distrito.