Between November 2023 and April 2024, more than 137,000 formal employees lost their jobs As a result of the recession and the policies implemented by the Government of Javier Milei. Real wages have also failed to recover the losses caused by the devaluation at the end of last year, despite a slight improvement in April.
According to data from the Argentine Integrated Pension System (YES DAD)almost 112,000 of those people who lost their source of income worked in the private sector, while another 25,000 were registered with the State..
They were also verified declines in employment of domestic workers and self-employed workers with social flat tax. On the other hand, increases were only seen in the segments of self-employed and independent contractors.
These numbers reflect the deterioration of the Argentine labor market, which now not only shows a growth in informality, but also a higher unemployment and a lack of protection for vulnerable sectors.
In April, there were almost 13,000 fewer jobs among private sector employees and 3,200 fewer jobs in the public sector.
Unemployment at its highest level since the pandemic
According to the latest data from INDEC, corresponding to the first quarter, Unemployment rose to 7.7%the highest figure since 2021, when the economy was still affected by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of unemployed reached 1,731,000 individuals between January and March, which meant an increase of 180,000 people compared to the same period last year.
In parallel, the pressure on the labour market, made up of the universe of unemployed, underemployed, employed and non-employed, available, reached 29.5% of the Economically Active Population (EAP), leaving a year-on-year increase of 2.6 percentage points.
The director of the Argentine Center for Political Economy (CEPA), Hernán Letcher anticipated that the numbers will continue to worsen, if one takes into account that the Labor Indicators Survey (EIL) of the Ministry of Labor anticipates a loss of at least 20,000 formal jobs by May..
“I have visited many companies recently. It is a pressure cooker; There are a lot of SMEs that have taken early vacations, suspended staff, cut overtime, all mechanisms prior to the termination of the employment relationship.“.
Real wages in the private sector have fallen by 5% since November
SIPA statistics indicated that Real wages of formal private sector employees improved by 5.2% in April. Even so, since November they have accumulated a contraction of 4.7%.
It should also be noted that this segment of workers is the most stable in the economy in this context. The salaries of public employees and informal workers (for whom SIPA does not provide information) are in a worse situation.
Salaries: May RIPTE
On the other hand, the Ministry of Labor also announced the evolution of the Average Taxable Remuneration of Stable Workers in May. (RIPT). The same gave a nominal increase of 7.3%, higher than the 4.2% inflation that occurred in that month.
However, specialists agree that Currently this is not the best indicator to assess revenue dynamics. of the population, since It is not based on concrete data of wages, but in the contributions made to the pension system.
“Given that in May the increase in the maximum taxable base was 11%, it is assumed that a good part of the nominal increase in the RIPTE is explained by the increase in the limit, and not by an increase in salaries as a whole,” explained CEPA.
Source: Ambito
