The duality of the Argentine economy is no longer a long-term projection, it is already observed and has its own dynamic. These two opposing realities, which exhibit the paradigm shift in the productive matrix, necessarily coexist and make the global figures hide different worlds: growth, on the one hand, and stagnation or terminal crisis on some others. And this also ends up affecting employment and the salary pyramid, an issue that becomes more sensitive as we approach 2027, a presidential electoral year in which every vote counts.
The takeoff. March left good news: after a semester on a downward slope, economic activity showed a rebound. The economist Gonzalo Carrerafrom the consultancy Balancehighlights that with the 3.5% monthly increase in aggregate activity in March, the quarter was almost tied with a growth of 0.3% compared to the 4th quarter of 2025 and led by primary activities (+6.2%), while non-primary activities fell 0.2%. The rest of the non-primary sectors grew 0.2% between quarters, continuing at levels similar to those of the beginning of 2025: +0.2% year-on-year. For Lorenzo Sigaut Gravina, from the same consulting firm, it is a measure to estimate that how Argentine GDP was only able to exceed (by less than 1%) the previous peak (2nd quarter of 2022) in the first quarter of this year. But, in per capita terms it is still 7% below the maximum reached in the 3rd quarter of 2011. We are no longer talking about “stagnation” but rather, at the income level and always on average, each Argentine produces and has less purchasing power..
Another positive fact was the confirmation of an upward trend in foreign trade: during April, foreign trade left a trade surplus of US$2,711 million, the result of US$8,914 million in exports and US$6,204 million in imports. But more notable is the improvement compared to the same month of the previous year: +US$2,646 million and a first quarter that with +US$8,277 million multiplies that achieved in the same period of 2025: +US$1,275 million and is the highest record with respect to the previous peak (2009). “Everything indicates that this trend will be consolidated in the remainder of the year, since the large surplus, which although it reached a peak in April, has averaged US$2.1 billion since November (against an average of US$686 million in the first ten months of 2025), responds to a combination of factors that has been consolidating: maximum export volumes and contracting imports,” explains the consulting firm’s latest weekly report INVECQ.
The pocket. The key in connecting the productive world (estimated by economic activity) is whether better indices in some sectors (even with an average almost zero) can generate enough labor demand to offset what other segments (construction, textile manufacturing and metalworking, for example). The economist Fernando Marull points out that construction generates 1.8 million jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, its activity fell the most, while agriculture, which grew the most, has a little less: 1.6 million. But looking globally, it estimates that 60% of employment is in sectors that are growing and the rest in those with a zero or negative rate, at least during the last two years. According to quote, the Employment and Business Dynamics Observatory (OEDE)yes ok “Quality employment” is 26% of the total, it has not fallen for two months (latest data from February). The net change in seasonally adjusted employment is -0.5%, which is 36,200 fewer jobs.
According to the last measurement of the INDEC (March 2026) the salary index increased 3.4% monthly and 36.4% year-on-year, while said indicator accumulates an increase of 8.6% compared to December 2025. “The monthly growth is due to increases of 2.1% in the registered private sector, 5.0% in the public sector and 4.7% in the unregistered private sector,” he details. In interannual terms, the salary index showed an increase of 36.4%, as a result of increases of 27.5% in the registered private sector, 29.6% in the public sector and 74.4% in the unregistered private sector.
In relation to November 2023, the IARAF calculates that formal private real wages they were 4.8% below; those of the national public sector -35.8%, those of the provincial public sector -9.2% and after a similar real fall in the first months of 2024, national public salaries continued to fall in real terms, while the provincial ones began an upward trend until August 2025.
spilling. In view of these results, the economist Laura Caullo responsible for the Social-Labor section of the IERAL maintains that the Argentine economy enters 2026 with signs of greater macroeconomic stability compared to previous years, but that the labor market continues to be “one of the main pending subjects of recovery“.”Today there is a marked duality in the productive system: while activities linked to the external front such as energy, mining, agribusiness and some export segments show better prospects, a good part of the sectors linked to the internal market continue to be affected by weakened real wages, lower consumption capacity and a recovery in activity that remains intermittent.”, analyzes in a study dedicated to the impact of economic activity on employment.
The focus is on the fact that the bias of this reactivation poses a structural challenge, since the most dynamic sectors in terms of exports and investment still have a relatively low weight in the direct generation of jobs: mining, oil, financial services and agriculture represent barely 3% of total employment and 7% of registered private salaried employment. “This implies that an improvement on the external front does not automatically translate into a broad recovery in employment or household income”he explains.
On the labor front, it suggests that the glass half empty continues to be the norm since the main problem is that the recovery has not yet been able to translate into a sustained generation of formal private employment. During the last year, almost 100 thousand registered private salaried workers lost their jobs while other more fragile modalities grew: monotributistas (+90 thousand new registrations) and unregistered employment. Formal private employment continues to be the most productive, stable and pays the most, but when employment grows in low productivity segments, the recovery loses the desired solidity. The evolution of income also has that uniform behavior that is becoming less and less “normal”: while the private sector registered to be recomposed after the initial adjustmentmanaged to partially recover purchasing power and achieved improvements (+12% year-on-year in mid-2025) but then lost momentum and slipped until this summer (-2.3%).
The key to unlocking this dilemma seems to be the time necessary for the greater activity in the “winning” nuclei to have an impact on the rest, which, by the way, are the most numerous in terms of geographical location. And in an election year, this will be measured in votes
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by Tristán Rodríguez Loredo
