The saw in which the Argentine economy became at least since 2001, had several effects, but the first of all was to infuse uncertainty as a key element in the dilemmas of economic policy. The balance is overwhelming: For example, between 2012 and 2024, the GDP stagnated, which implies that the income per inhabitant decreased in the same proportion as its increase: 1.2% average every year; A pruning of 15% above the regular levels of 2011.
In waterfall. The first victim of this slow chamber settings is employment, because in a malnourished economy, the demand for work is also deflated. SEgún The last report of the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) of INDEC, the economically active population (PEA) constitutes 48.8% of the total and 45.7% is the employment rate and the unemployment rate (people who have no occupation, are available to work and seek actively employment, it was 6.4%. However, the survival instinct is very strong And that generated that in the face of negative cycles on demand for work, subsistence alternatives appear: state employment (especially at provincial and local levels, mixed with clientelism), registered accounts (monotax) and, finally, informality.
Of the total occupied, 27.7% are “non -salaried” workers (accounting); 46.2% roasted blank (public and private) and 26.1%, informal (in black). These proportions return to retroot the figures to the values prior to the inflationary and devaluation jump of 2023. Only a small slide is perceived in the unemployment rate (from 5.7% to 6.4%) and suboccupation (from 10.5% to 11.3%), which could be aggravated if it constitutes a trend.
In the 4th quarter of 2024 there was an increase in labor participation and a slight increase in employment, but was insufficient to absorb growth in labor participation.
In an analysis of IDESA on these results, it is observed that registered wage employment fell in 200 thousand people, The unregistered wage earner remained stable and the proportion has increased by 300 thousand people. That is, the employment rose in 100,000 people from the hand of the accounting, so unemployment rose in 150 thousand people.
However, the relative stability of unemployment numbers collides with the perception of much of the people who consider employment problems very serious. Is there a lack of employment? According to INDEC data, between the 4th quarter of 2024 and the same period of the previous year it is observed that open unemployment grew by 150 thousand peoplewhile demanding employment (the people who have employment and seek to work more) grew in 250 thousand people. These data show that lack of employment is not reflected both in unoccupied people and those who want to work more and find no alternatives. The employment problem in Argentina is more of quality (precarious and poorly paid jobs) than quantity. ANDn the INDEC survey on salaries, in December 2024, this index increased 3.1% monthly and 145.5% year -on -year. The monthly growth is explained by the 2.8% increases in the private sector, 1.7% in the public sector and 6.8% in the unregistered private sector, perhaps influenced by seasonality in the demand for informal work that officiates of escape valve. But during the inflationary peaks of the first quarter of the year, formal private salaries lasted the general average, due to the best union negotiation capacity in these sectors.
In this report, it is pointed out that the reason for unemployment to be low, even in times of crisis, is the strong expansion of the contracting: when a person fails to get a job in a formal company generally appeals to self -employment, a labor modality that is facilitated by new technologies. For example, applying their resources as the use of your own vehicle to transport people or objects such as electronic commerce platforms. This serves as compensation for the loss of formal or quality jobs, in a clear appeal to the sense of social survival.
It is likely that, in addition to greater economic dynamism, the impulse to the generation of quality jobs does not cross an ambitious program of comprehensive reform in labor standards. IDESA marks that with only three specific changes, strong impacts could be achieved: allow SMEs to unwill the sector collective agreements, reduce social burdens in SMEs by establishing a non -taxable minimum on the salary mass for employer contributions and ensure that provincial justices incorporate medical experts that are engaged in the rules of the labor risk system.
Speed. Although in the medium term economic instability affects the negatively creation of jobs, the question is to know what the positive impact is: that is, how much the income should grow to be able to generate each percentage point of employment and/or low in the unemployment rate, but also how that sequence should be given to qualitatively improve the composition of the current structure of the labor market.
The economist Jorge ColinaPresident of IDESA points out that the Gross Employment-Product relationship also depends on inflation because it liquefies the labor cost. “Then, the higher the labor cost liquefaction the employment-product ratio rises. In general, in the fields that we have seen from 2004-2012 that the economy grew in that way, the ratio was 0.7 (1% of the GDP made the employment rise 0.7%) and with less salary licor, if the real salary is a little higher the figure of 0.5”, Explain. At the same time, he suggests that at this time, with exchange delay, without inflation and a relatively high real salary, that relationship can be 0.3. That is, in this case more extreme, for each point of growth, employment with formal salary grows just 30%. This is not science fiction, because OECD projections, for example, show that after the 1.8% drop in Argentina’s GDP, 5.7% would be recovered in 2025 and by 2026 it is estimated that it could be above 4% per year annually.
Radiography. The other component that was changing slowly is that of the composition, which is not due to the crisis of any particular sector. It is a general labor crisis that is given by stagnation in the creation of registered wage employment, which leads people to be used in the process, generally informal. And although it may be registered in the monotax, it ends up being informal because it is of very low remuneration and unstable. This occurs simply because formal employment stagnation leads to informal employment, influencing the chango of the composition. “The stagnation of formal employment has to do with the stagnation of investment since companies invest only in maintenance, but not in their expansion, ” concludes. Thus, the level of employment stagnates and the growth of GDP slows.
I work for some. This rate is located below the average of the last decade, but hides serious problems linked to high informality and labor inactivity rates, as well as another growing problem: the gap between age groups. According to data from the EPH study, the unemployment rate of young people between 14 and 29 years was 13.1%, against 4.5% in adults between 30 and 64, magnitude that is maintained over time. Also the high informality is deepened in the young segment: in the third quarter of 2024, 45.1% of occupied young people are informal employees while in adults they are 22.2%. Even considering non -professionals who work as an account, that percentage of informal young people amounts to 62.4% (vs. 40.4% of occupied adults).
The problems in the labor market that took years to decant and stratify may need even more than years of economic stability and investment. But without that, the Argentine economy will not be able to leave the vicious circle of destruction of acute employment and divestment. While the Central Bank’s reserves drain prepares the way for the threat of a new wave of uncertainty, the effort will be to continue inquiring about reforms that go beyond to meet the short -term urgencies is in itself the best investment that the economy as a whole can do so as not to always be cutting in penalties. Above all, in a market in which the “offer” is made up of millions of citizens and their family framework.
