Unemployment rose again in the border areaaggravated —among other factors— by the drop in sales due to the exchange difference and the price gap that exists between Uruguay and Argentina. According to the latest disaggregated data from the National Statistics Institute (INE)the indicator in this strip of the country is well above the 8.4% average at the national level.
The coastline is far from going through its prime. Among the announcements of new measures to try to alleviate the critical situation generated by the exchange rate gap with the neighboring country —without a view to solving it in the short term, as long as the Argentine economy does not channel itself into a certain stability— and the claims of business sectors and industrialists for a greater tightening of border policies —precisely, they demand that the “zero kilo” be applied to combat smuggling—; the INE published the data on activity, employment and unemployment corresponding to the moving quarter January-March 2023. And the news is not good.
Unemployment figures in the border area
Leap, once again, it was the department with the highest unemployment rate, with a 14.7% and 9,900 unemployed people during the reference period. During the previous moving quarter —December 2022 – February 2023— this figure was already 14.2%, the highest in the country. The deteriorating trend has been registered month by month since the middle of last year, showing the insufficiency of official measures regarding this problem.
In Black river, meanwhile, unemployment climbed to 14.1%, with 4,200 unemployed, from 13.4% computed in the previous report. Likewise, according to INE records, a year ago this department had a rate of 9.2%.
The second place of the highest unemployment rate at the country level was shared by Artigas, according to monthly estimates of the labor market by geographic area of residence. On this occasion, and after several quarters of strong deterioration, the department registered an unemployment rate of 14.1%, the same as Río Negro, but the jump was greater insofar as its previous record was 12.7%.
In fifth position, meanwhile, is Soriano with 11.4% according to official measurements, surpassed by one tenth by tin Thirty and three (11.5%).
Finally, in Paysandu, unemployment was 10.8% in the first third of the year, with 6,200 people in this employment situation, when in the immediately previous measurement this figure was 10.5%. Unemployment numbers in the department worsened for the third time in a row. Likewise, in March of last year, this indicator had stood at 7.3% in sanducera lands.
Unemployment in that strip of Uruguayan territory is above the national average, which is currently 8.4%.
A “dramatic” situation at the border
The current scenario in the border area is serious, and everyone agrees on it. In this sense, the director National Employment, Daniel Perezrecognized last week in the Parliament that the “most dramatic” situation occurs in Soriano and Salto, and that “a good part” of this “is influenced” by the exchange rate difference with Argentina. “In Artigas it is a little less, but he also feels it,” he said.
Pérez added that in some cases “the problem came from before.” As an example, he indicated that Salto had unemployment “problems” since 2019. “In fact, in 2019, the average rate in that department was 12.5% throughout the year; in 2022 it closed with 13%. (…) And between 2018 and 2019 there is a rise in the unemployment rate of 2.7% ”, he stated during the meeting of the Labor Legislation Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
This also makes it possible to account for the structural character that there is an exchange difference with the neighboring country, and that the current exacerbated context of the Argentine blue dollar only worsens a basic situation that, in and of itself, is not beneficial for the coastal departments.
Source: Ambito
