Rio de Janeiroruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Oil, gas & offshore energy
Petrobras, Shell Brasil, Equinor, TotalEnergies, ANP
Rio is the operational capital of Brazilian oil. Petrobras is headquartered downtown, the national regulator ANP sits here, and the pre-salt Campos and Santos basins are run out of the city — which is why a large share of Rio's foreign professionals are on oil and gas secondments.
Media, film & television
Globo, Rio Filme, Conspiração, Gloob
TV Globo's Projac studio complex in Jacarepaguá is one of the largest television production facilities in the world, and Rio is where Brazilian broadcast, telenovela and advertising production is physically made.
Public health & biomedical research
Fiocruz, INCA, UFRJ, Bio-Manguinhos
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz at Manguinhos is Latin America's foremost public health research institution and a major vaccine producer — a genuine research employer that has nothing to do with the beach economy.
Finance, insurance & development banking
BNDES, IRB Brasil Re, Icatu, Brasilprev
São Paulo took the banking crown, but BNDES — the national development bank and one of the largest development banks anywhere — is headquartered in Rio, along with the reinsurance and pensions cluster.
Tourism, events & hospitality
Riotur, Belmond, Rio Convention Bureau, cruise operators
Carnival, New Year on Copacabana and the cruise terminal at Píer Mauá make tourism a structural employer, with the corresponding seasonality in short-let housing supply.
Technology & creative industries
Globo tech, Porto Maravalley, CESAR Rio, Petrobras CENPES
Smaller than São Paulo's scene but real, concentrated in the regenerated Porto Maravilha docklands and around the UFRJ Ilha do Fundão campus where Petrobras runs its CENPES research centre.
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