Real wages suffered in March their greatest fall since December 2023, while 9,000 wage jobs were lost. It happened in the midst of greater tension in exchange markets and a brake in economic activity.
As reported by Labor Secretariat From the data of the Argentine Integrated System (SIPA)the purchasing power of salaried workers registered in the private sector contracted 2.6% in the third month of the year.
It was the greatest deterioration since the first month of libertarian management, when the wages collapsed almost 11% after the devaluation of the Government of Javier Milei. With this last data, the salaries remained just 1.4% above the level of November 2023.
In addition, April preliminary data showed the third consecutive fall. According to SIPA, in that period the accumulated decrease revolved around 4%.
This indicator had given better results than its peers in February, due to the positive effect that meant the greatest number of hours worked (something that does not contemplate, for example, the INDEC index). In March the dynamic was reversed because, with the fall in employment and achicming of the activity, there were Less hours worked.
In the Milei era almost 200,000 formal jobs were already lost
In parallel, in March they were verified 7,300 minus registered salaries in the private sector, 800 less in the public sector and 900 less in the segment of workers of private houses, which in the aggregate gave a negative balance of almost 9,000 jobs In this case, you have to go back to July 2024 to see a more magnitude decrease.
From these latest data, In the Milei era more than 195,000 jobs were already lostof which more than 115,000 corresponded to the private sector. At the sector level, The construction and manufacturing industry were the most beaten activitieswith a destruction of 62,000 and 31,300 jobs, respectively (the industry was the most affected in March, with a decline of 4,000 labor sources.
Macro uncertainty hit employment and salaries: what is expected forward?
The numbers coincided with a monthly deterioration of 1.8% in the economic activity, in the midst of an increase in the exchange gap, as a reflection of the unsustainability of the “Crawling PEG” of the 1% monthly that the Central Bank (BCRA) was applying for the official exchange rate price. That scheme encouraged reservations and deepened the country’s dollarssomething that was not solved with the new regime of flotation bands, although the financing of international organizations gave the monetary authority greater support to defend the value of the currency.
“March was the month of more volatility prior to the flexibility of the stocks, so it was sung that you were going to have big problems. The issue is that The Labor Indicators Survey (EIL), which looks a month later, does not give very good prospects“He said in dialogue with scope Juan Grañaeconomist of the Paternal Group.
For its part, Luis Camposresearcher at the Institute of Studies and Training of the Autonomous CTA, clarified that the relationship between activity and employment is not linear, since the previous growth that the economy was showing was not reflected in a job creation.
For May, the CP consultant estimates a salary recoveryespecially from 1.5% inflation that INDEC reported Thursday. However, its director Federico Pastrana predicted that the rebound does not mean that it extends forwardsince inflation can find an apartment on these levels, while many unions are negotiating fixed sums for once, so real wages can rise in a month and the next month back back.
Graña sees that “This very cheap dollar model and commercial opening is fragmenting the productive structure and the employmentor in two parts “: one linked to sectors with export profile and low employment generation, and another part more dedicated to the domestic market, urban employment and mass consumption, which is very depressed and without recovering the levels it had in 2023.
Therefore, he argued that, this profile of economic growth that is not intensive in job creation, added to the fact that the salary guideline for the private ones has been below inflationsince there is a political decision to lower public salariesmake the domestic market react and that the prospects do not improve.
Source: Ambito
