Statistics help to provide a reference in economic matters, especially to contextualize the meaning of everyday perceptions. According to the latest figures reported by INDEC, GDP grew on average 4.4% during 2025, a figure that could contrast with complaints from countless industrial and commercial sectors about the decline in the level of activity they have been suffering. But, in addition, another report from the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) of the same official organization confirmed that, in the last quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate grew, going from 6.4% to 7.5% in one year. However, what is striking is not this figure, which is also below the average of the last two decades (8.3%) but rather that in two years what occurred more than a nominal jump (+1.1%) was a relevant qualitative change: while 60,000 total urban jobs disappeared, the great victim was formal work (-190,000 jobs).
a look. What is happening with the Argentine economy is not easy to project. After two years of economic recovery, instead of adding jobs, they are destroyed and instead of creating formal jobs, there is a qualitative deterioration in their composition, especially with the rise of informal jobs or jobs registered under the monotax modality (self-employed). This number has been on the rise for the last 15 years, coincidentally the same years in which GDP stagnated from end to end. “This disconnect between economic growth and employment dynamics is due to the fact that dynamic sectors (agriculture, mining, financial intermediation) are the least employment-intensive,” highlights the latest report from the consulting firm Invecq. However, it points out that, with historical perspective, the data for the fourth quarter of 2025 is not far from the records for the same period in 2016 (7.6%) and 2017 (7.2%) and is below the levels of those of 2018 and 2019, (9.1% and 8.9% respectively). “With these levels, we are not facing a crisis of massive job destruction, but what is most worrying is the deterioration in the quality of employment, with a fall in formal private employment and an increase in informal work,” he argues.
In a more detailed analysis, it can be seen that commerce added 210,000 informal positions while those registered privately in that area grew by only 4,000. The manufacturing industry, on the other hand, added 87,000 unregistered workers, but lost 63,000 formal jobs. On the other hand, construction simultaneously lost formal and informal positions (47,000 and 96,000, respectively), explained by the drop in activity in the period (-27% in 2024 and +5% in 2025).
Less is more. The prospects for 2026 are for growth in labor-intensive sectors, but of limited magnitude: Invecq projects a modest expansion for industry and commerce (+1%) and 5% for construction. But the most dynamic sectors will continue to be the least job-generating: agriculture, oil and gas, mining, with growth even higher than 5% and which, in addition, are located in areas far from large urban centers, with the exception of the Neuquén hub.
For his part, Jorge Colina, IDESA economist, highlights that the growth in production recorded in the last two years is decisively supported by the agricultural sector, energy, mining and financial intermediation, sectors characterized by the high generation of added value with low employment intensity and in most cases far from urban centers. “At the other extreme, there are sectors such as construction, industry and commerce that still have not emerged from chronic lethargy. Something similar happens with the rest of the services that have a very important weight from the point of view of urban employment,” he adds.
All of these characteristics reflect, in part, the phenomenon associated with the adaptation of many companies to the context of stability and greater integration into the world. “But it is also a consequence of the fact that a tax, regulatory environment and deficient physical and institutional infrastructure persists that, in a very different way between sectors, conspires against competitiveness and its possibilities of sustaining and expanding employment levels,” he explains.
Another peculiarity of the labor market in Argentina highlighted by Colina is that 90% of the demand for private employment is carried out by companies with less than 40 employees and with less than 10 employees they are equivalent to 76% of unregistered employment. According to Colina, informality in small businesses is due to low levels of productivity and high labor costs: salaries in informal businesses are approximately $550,000 in those with less than 10 employees and $800,000 in those with between 10 and 40 employees.
Under pressure. These characteristics, added to the growth projection for the activities that least demand formal employment in areas with a high concentration of workers, end up consolidating another phenomenon: the available employment is not enough, neither in number of hours nor in level of income. In an IERAL work carried out by Labor Area economists Laura Caullo and Federico Belich, they point out that, of the 21 million employed people, more than 3.7 million are in this situation. They are workers who, even though they have a job, are actively looking for another job or a greater workload. Sometimes, because they cannot complete a full day; others, due to insufficient income and in this context, moonlighting ceases to be an exception and begins to consolidate itself as a strategy to sustain income.
“That is, the problem is not limited only to the lack of employment, but also to the quality and capacity of existing positions to sustain income; when this dimension is incorporated, the image of the labor market changes significantly,” they say.
Adding the unemployed to the employed who seek to work more hours or improve their employment situation, the pressure on the labor market amounts to 24% of the economically active population, which in absolute terms is equivalent to more than 5 million people. The interpretation is that these figures “show that the adjustment of the labor market not only operates due to the quantity of employment available, but also due to its quality.”
Therefore, the magnitude of the labor problem arises when adding the unemployed and the employed who are looking for more hours of work or a better quality job. Thus, the effective pressure on the labor market rises to 23% of the economically active population (EAP), equivalent to 5.2 million people and shows that “low unemployment does not necessarily reflect a healthy labor market, but also the expansion of precarious, fragmented or informal jobs,” they add.
The differences between the areas of the country and their productive characteristics reinforce this diagnosis. For example, provinces such as Córdoba (35.4%), Tucumán (34.2%) and Santa Cruz (27.7%), have high levels of work pressure (always measured as the sum of “demanding employed” and unemployed), especially due to the proportion of employed people looking for another job. None of these markets have a higher open unemployment rate, but they do have wages that are insufficient to sustain income.
It is evident that the battle is no longer one of reducing unemployment but rather finding the cracks in the complex labor market to achieve its revitalization and gradual formalization. There is no magic: the necessary conditions are regulations that encourage and do not stifle productive investment, macroeconomic stability and the reappearance of credit to finance the process. Nothing less.
