It is “the” data for the protagonists of the sector. In a context of urgent need for dollars, the reality enjoyed by the “knowledge economy” sector does not go unnoticed by its referents. For the first time since 2017, annual exports grew compared to the previous year, breaking a regressive cycle that lasted three consecutive years. “The variation reached 14% showing a sensitive recovery that takes the level of annual shipments to 87% of its historical maximumwhich occurred in the first quarter of 2018. Considering exclusively the sales corresponding to the fourth quarter, that of 2021 is the second best record in history, only surpassed by the exports of 2011”, indicates a report by “Argenconomics“, report of Economic Studies on the Knowledge Industry (EdC). The phenomenon is not only local “This result, which is global, was also verified in the local market,” adds the report. Nevertheless, Sebastian MocorreaPresident of Argencon (the chamber that brings together service providers from all verticals in the sector) considers that “a country like Poland, similar to ours, exports US$32,000 million, six times more. Romania exports US$15 billion. Imagine that in jobs, in dollar income. Foreign exchange would no longer be a recurring problem”.
What is the so-called “knowledge economy”? It is a nucleus of very high-tech companies, which is not only made up of the companies that were born in this new era, but also includes all those firms from the traditional economy that incorporate digital technology, with activities that have nothing to do with with a specific sector, but with a global social, cultural and economic movement. “Speaking of ‘knowledge economy’ does not imply referring to companies like Google, Globant or Mercado Libre”highlight its main referents.
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Two particular phenomena of the local market affected the numbers achieved:
* The exchange gap close to 100% that existed throughout the year led to a strong “brain drain” towards the informal labor market,
• A strong “dollar backlog” was recorded, which had a significant impact on the cost of sales of most of the knowledge industries.
reasons. “The combined effect of both factors forced companies to make continuous adjustments to their business strategies to adapt to the changing conditions of the economy and prevents us from analyzing 2021 as a normal year, the starting point of a new trend that is sustainable over time. ”, explains “Argenconomics”. If a deeper analysis of this reality is made, considering formal exports -US$6.4 billion- and unregistered exports -US$1.8 billion-, the EoC is consolidated as the third national item in creation of exportable value.. However, the share of EoC exports in the national total reached 7.4%, which represented a decrease compared to 8.4% in 2020. Why is this? “It is justified by the significant increase in the value of agricultural commodities and by the impossibility of computing irregular exports in the official statistics,” explained an executive.
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In turn, the consequence of rising local costs makes Argentina, although it maintains its high competitiveness in the categories of medium and high value services, it becomes less and less attractive in the low value segments compared to other countries. competitors in the region. “This niche is particularly interesting due to its capacity for massive job creation, which is why it would deserve specific treatment within a general strategy for generating youth employment,” they point out from the Chamber that brings together the sector.
Drain. One of the obstacles that the EoC faces is the brain drain, which was evidenced by the increase in the rate of turnover of personnel in companies, especially in the IT services segment. “It came to exceed 30% in some cases, which implies the total renewal of the endowments in the period of three years.”, slide worried from the House.
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In the third quarter of 2021, the total number of EoC jobs rose to 454,000, reaching an all-time high. This value represents an interannual increase of 7.9%, and represents 7.35% of local private employment. The sector with the highest percentage growth was Computer Services, which added 129,000 jobs, 13.3% more than in the same quarter of 2020. “It should be noted that INDEC provides information by category of the economy, without discriminating whether the jobs correspond to export activities or to serve the local market. It can be inferred that of the total national private employment in the knowledge industries, an approximate value of 45% is dedicated to export services, either full-time or part-time.”, they expand from the Chamber.
Not long ago, his own Mark Galperinfounder of Free market, analyzed the potential of this sector: “all industries are being increasingly strongly impacted by technology. The potential of the knowledge economy sector is a great opportunity”. Therefore, the training of human resources does not go unnoticed by employers: the demand is greater than the supply. For this reason, Mercado Libre, Digital House and Globant created a program called “Certified Tech Developer” so that thousands of young people from Latin America learn to program. A bet on the future.
by Marcelo Alfano
