?BRASILIA, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Brazil created 529,554 net formal jobs in 2018, following three consecutive years of negative balances in the labor market, the Ministry of Economy said Wednesday.

Last year there were 15,384,283 hires compared to 14,854,729 layoffs, according to the National Registry of Employed and Unemployed.

?The creation of net formal jobs means that the South American country closed 2018 with 38.39 million formal jobs compared to 37.86 million at the end of 2017.

However, 334,462 net formal jobs were lost in December, despite the positive result through the whole year of 2018.

According to Rogerio Marinho, special secretary for welfare and labor in the Ministry of Economy, the government will increase the established gains with labor reform.

"We are going to de-bureaucratize to allow a larger number of workers to leave informal jobs," he said.