Workers’ inflation was 10.4% in Marchslowing down by 5.4 points compared to February values, according to the latest measurement by the Institute of Workers Statistics (IET) of the Metropolitan University for Education and Work (UMET) and the Center for Concertation and Development (CCD).
With this record, Interannual inflation reached 303.2% in the last 12 months and 56.8% in the first quarter of the year.
According to IET analysts, “similar to February, the slowdown in inflation in March was associated with the stability of the nominal dollar (which rose 2% monthly) after the devaluation jump in December. The reduction of the exchange rate gap also had an impact, the fall in international raw material prices and the sharp contraction in consumption, which is limiting increases in certain sectors.”
Given the situation, the former Minister of Education and executive director of the CCD, Nicolás Trotta, “we are seeing that through a deliberate liquefaction of the purchasing power of salaries, what constitutes the central objective of the government’s policy is materialized: to produce an adjustment economic system that saves foreign currency in the worst way and disciplines workers with the consequent increase in poverty and unemployment. A government that ironically claims to support free joint ventures, but does not approve them and accuses them of abusive pricing practices, such as prepaid payments, which he himself promotes.”
March inflation was driven by Education (24.6%), which is an item that usually concentrates one of its increases in that month, as a result of the beginning of the school year.
In second place is Communications (20.6%), product of increases in cell phones and internet, followed by Housing (12.8%), Other goods and services (12.4%) and Transportation (10.6%). In the latter case, and unlike previous months, more moderate increases in fuels were recorded. Food and beverages, meanwhile, rose 7.1%.
Real salary fall
Real wages fell 19% year-on-year in Januarywhich puts the beginning of 2024 as the fourth largest interannual drop in the last nine decades in Argentina, only behind 1976 (-37.1%), 1969 (-23%) and 1989 (-21%).
The contraction that has been recorded so far in 2024 has been of a very similar magnitude to that of 2002 (-18.9%)”, the analysts detail.
“We see that through a deliberate liquefaction of wages the central objective of the government’s policy is materialized: to produce an economic adjustment that saves foreign currency in the worst way and disciplines workers with the consequent increase in poverty and unemployment” , revealed the former Minister of Education and executive director of the CCD, Nicolás Trotta.
Source: Ambito
