Guzmán stated in dialogue with New dairy that the fall in sales is gradual and increasing, due to the lack of recovery of workers’ salaries, which means that people cannot consume.
“It’s not that people don’t want to consume and it’s not that they have money and are saving money. People don’t have, they don’t have enough to consume because salaries have not been restored. There may have been a slowdown or it can be foreseen from the numbers and from the papers and not from reality, a slowdown in terms of prices,” he said.
In that sense, he highlighted that SMEs in previous months made increases and consumers could still pay them, but currently the increase in operating costs has been very high and can no longer be passed on to the consumer because they no longer have the margin to pay it.
“The SME absorbs that fixed cost, stops earning the profit margin it had, and then is working almost at cost. “She is working to be able to continue maintaining it to see if it improves at some point,” she remarked.
The situation led – Guzmán reported – to a drop in year-on-year consumption of around 17%, which is greater or less depending on the sector. This panorama led to the closure of 20% of the SMEs that were in Salta.
“This translates into job reductions. To cite an example, if you have a sandwich shop, that sandwich shop has the owner, the cook, the bachero and two cadets with him. There you already have five people. If that sandwich shop has no one to sell to, it closes. And when it closes, there are five people, five families who are left without income and have to go out to look for an alternative when they are not the only ones in it and they have to deal with it,” he remarked.
Given this, Guzmán stressed that there is no economic measure that works to support companies if the reactivation of consumption is not achieved, before thinking about discussing growth measures for SMEs.
“As the SME Chamber, what we believe is the key is unity. The key is to unite SMEs with SMEs, because that is our slogan for this year. Come together and do as a team and reinvent ourselves,” she concluded.
