The Minister of Labor, Luiz Marinho, stated this Thursday (9) that the government wants to release R$7 billion from the Service Time Guarantee Fund (FGTS) of 10 million workers who had the amount withheld for having joined the birthday withdrawal. The measure should help contain debt in the country, one of the government’s concerns in an election year.
In an interview on the program Hello Hello Brazilpresented by José Luiz Datena, Marinho cited the two provisional measures signed by the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to release the amount withheld from the fund for those who had been fired and were subject to withdrawal restrictions due to the birthday withdrawal law.
“In the first half of the year, we released R$12 billion for 12 million workers and, at the end of the year, we released R$8 and a half billion for 14 million workers,” said Marinho. “Caixa (Federal Economy)in my understanding, made a mistake here because she did not release all of these resources”he stated.
And he added: “There is a residue of R$7 billion that we are working on and proposing to release now. We are determining exactly the number of workers who will receive what is their legitimate right, but we believe it is around 10 million.”
In the interview, Marinho mentioned the large debt process among part of the population. “We are working on this logic of seeking to create conditions to reduce this debt,” he said. “Create effective conditions so that workers can return to their normal lives.”
The birthday loot was created by law in 2019 and allows the worker to withdraw part of the FGTS account balance every year in the month of their birthday.
However, If he is fired, he could only withdraw the amount related to the termination fine, without having access to the full value of the account.
At the end of last year, the government issued a provisional measure to temporarily allow the release of the FGTS balance retained for workers who opted for the birthday withdrawal and were laid off between January 2020 and December 23, 2025.
