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SAO PAULO (AP) \u2014 Brazil\u2019s President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> on Tuesday signed a new law to expand the country\u2019s affirmative action policies, increasing the quota for government jobs reserved for Blacks from 20% to 30% and adding Indigenous people and descendants of Afro-Brazilian enslaved people as beneficiaries.<\/p>\n The changes apply to candidates applying for permanent and public employment positions across Brazil’s federal administration, agencies, public foundations, public companies and state-run mixed-capital companies. As approved by Congress, the quota will be revised in 2035.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important to allow this country for one day to have a society reflected in its public offices, in the Prosecutors’ Office, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Attorney-General\u2019s Office, in the Internal Revenue Service, everywhere,\u201d Lula said at the presidential palace in the capital, Brasilia. \u201cWe still have few women, few Black people, almost no Indigenous people.”<\/p>\n Brazil’s first law on racial quotas for government jobs<\/a> was approved in 2014 by then President Dilma Rousseff, and it extended to public administration positions an affirmative action policy that was in place for access to state-run universities.<\/p>\n Brazil’s government said in a statement that Blacks and mixed-race people held 25% of top government jobs in 2014, a figure that rose to 36% in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cStill, Black people are under-represented in the public service and hold lower-wage positions,” the government added.<\/p>\n Management and Innovation Minister Esther Dweck said the new law was needed due to a low number of new government jobs being opened for candidates in the last decade, when the previous quota was in place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could not reverse the scenario of low representation (for minorities) in the public service,” Dweck said in a speech Tuesday.<\/p>\n Brazil’s government said 55% of the country’s population is made up of Black or mixed-race people. It added that more than 70% of Brazilians living below the poverty line are also Black or mixed race, while only 1% of people from those ethnicities are in leadership positions in the private sector.<\/p>\n ____<\/p>\n Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n