Despite the rebound that is projected for the economy this year, Employment generation expectations do not improve in the industrial sector. According to INDEC data, one in four firms plans to reduce its template in the next sixty days. The Government deepens the exchange delay and steps on the accelerator with the commercial opening. Companies, on alert for high taxes, warn that an “explosive combo” for national production is being generated.
The industry does not have time to process bad news before the next one appears. To the hard blow that implied the recession of the first semester of 2024, a strong process of deregulation and commercial opening occurred. Then the exchange rate began to be appreciated and the tariff sales appeared.
Everything goes in the same sense, more difficulty producing in Argentina. “Fixed exchange rate, without tax decline and with tariff reduction is a collective murder,” said the owner of an industrial company crudely which has several factories in the country and uses more than 600 people.
The combo described by the businessman who asked to maintain anonymity is deepened. Inflation accelerated again in February, it jumped to 2.4%, just in the month in which the government He decided to reduce the rhythm of devaluation of the official exchange rate. On the weekend the Minister of Economy Luis Caputo announced a new tariffs. In the industrial sector they complain about the order of the sequence because import taxes are first lowered. They point out that “the court is inclined.”
Tariffs
“In the next few days we will publish a decree in the Official Bulletin to Dower clothing and footwear tariffswhich will go from 35% to 20%; from fabrics from 26% to 18%; and of the different courses from 18% to 12%, 14% and 16%, ”he said in his X Caputo account.
The Argentine industrial chamber of clothing and the Argentine Federation of clothing responded with a hard statement: “The decline in tariffs announced by the National Government will destroy thousands of national jobs and companies”they said.
On this point, they warned: “The Government must first comply with its promises to lower taxes, social loads, stop the trial industry, lower high financial costs and lift the stocks” and finished off: “Without doing that, this measure is a Industry”
Next Monday, the Mar del Plata textile camera will hold a press conference. They advance that the impact of the measure will be severe in that city. In the entire textile value chain about 520,000 people work nationwide.
Employment
Precisely employment appears as one of the most sensitive variables for the coming months. According to a survey published by INDEC, 27% of industrial companies plan to reduce their workforce in the next 60 days. Only 7% expect to hire new employees and 60% argue that it will keep it without changes.
Sources of association of metallurgical industrialists of the Argentine Republic explained that in February there was a year -on -year fall of 1.8% and a slight retraction of 0.3% compared to January: “Some sectors show signs of recovery, the general trend continues to evidence difficulties in the generation of employment,” they explained.
On this point, expectations are not positive either: 71.9% of companies plan to maintain or reduce their workforcewhile only 28.1% anticipate a slight increase in employment. “This suggests that the recovery of the sector still faces important challenges,” they detailed in Adimra.
SMEs and government theory
The situation is aggravated when the focus on small and medium -sized companies is focused. Mauro González, president of the Federal Confederation SME put it in numbers: “Almost 15,000 companies closed in the last year and about 100,000 jobs were lost throughout the country,” said.
Forward it agreed that the employment perspective is negative: “It was already evident that The Argentine production of goods and services has been reduced And this will impact directly on employment, ”he said.
Despite the discussion that is being given global by the relocation of productive cycles, The government decreases importance to the destruction of industrial employment And he points out that the work that is destroyed in one sector will be generated in another. Precept that until now it is not checked in the factual: according to official data In the private sector as a whole, more than 119,000 work sources were lost.
Source: Ambito
