The unemployment went up to 7.6% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to 6.2% of the same period in 2023, which implied an advance of 1.4 percentage points (pp)as reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC)However, compared to the previous quarter, it experienced a slight decrease of 0.1 pp, since unemployment stood at 7.7%.
Extrapolated to the population, Unemployment reached 1,734,000 Argentines in the second quartersome 383,000 new unemployedas he stated in a conversation with Scope the economist of the STRAIN, Hernan Letcher. Although, when considering the total of the Economically Active Population (EAP), went from the 47.6% to the 48.5% (0.9 pp) above the same period of the previous year), while the employment rate had a very marginal rise, from 44.6% to 44.8%. “The higher unemployment is explained by people who enter the market (low household income?) and do not find work,” he stressed. Luis Campos, Researcher at the Institute of Studies and Training of the CTA – Autonomous.
Unemployment rate remains at pandemic highs
During the first quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate reached the highest levels of the pandemic and, in the second quarter, it maintained them. According to Campos’ analysis, unemployment is the highest since the second quarter of 2016, except for 2020. “With an activity that has been in the red for three quarters and where only agriculture is driving the economy, 7.6% does not seem like a bad number.“, he added.
All things considered, the Government itself expects unemployment to continue to rise: in the Budget 2025 which was presented by the Executive, Unemployment insurance was projected to rise from 112,439 in 2024 to 161,127 next year.
Next week the INDEC will publish the Poverty and extreme poverty data for the first half of the year.
The underemployment rate marked the 11.8% of the PEAan increase of 1.2 pp compared to the second quarter of the previous year (10.6%)while the other employed plaintiffs and the other employed non-plaintiffs available together reached 10.3% of the EAP.
Consequently, the pressure on the labor market, made up of the universe of unemployed, underemployed, employed job seekers and employed non-employment seekers availablegrew from the 27.9% to the 29.7% of the EAP in the year-on-year comparison.
Inside the employed population (44.8%), It was highlighted that the 73.8% are salaried employeeswhile the 36.4% do not have a retirement discount. On the other hand, the 23% self-employedhe 3% are patterns and the 0.3% are unpaid family workers.
“Young women were the ones who had the worst time. The unemployment rate rose by 3 percentage points (from 13.4% to 16.5%), by far the most significant decline. Young men also suffered: they went from 12.3% to 13.9%,” Campos said.
When broken down by geographic level, the cities with the highest unemployment are: Resistencia (11%), La Plata (9.9%), the GBA (9.1%) and Trelew (9.0%)At the other extreme, cities with almost no unemployment are Santiago del Estero (0.7%) and Viedma (0.9%).
“Córdoba and Jujuy are two other agglomerations worth focusing on. Unemployment was not as high there (8.2% and 4% respectively), but the number of employed people seeking work is at very high levels (28.2% and 28.1%). More than a third of workers are actively looking for work,” added Campos.
Source: Ambito
