In the last seven months contemplated by official statistics, the economy lost 127 thousand registered jobs from the private sector. Only in the months of the government of Javier Milei they destroyed themselves 95 thousand jobs of those characteristics, and most are explained by the construction sectoraffected by the suspension of most public works.
According to data from the Ministry of Employment, in March they fell 0.4% private salaried employees, something more than the 0.3% February but less than 0.6% from January. Although they have a little more lag than the economic activity data, the official information on the labor market does not seem to show signs of having hit a floor. “To account for the magnitude of the drop in employment, it should be noted that between August 2023 and March 2024, employment accumulated a drop of 2%, which translates into 127 thousand fewer people employed in the registered private labor market”, stated the labor portfolio report.
“The joint dynamics of certain sectors led private registered salaried employment from a situation of positive variation rates to one of negative rates. In this sense, one of the sectors that explains the drop in employment is Construction, which stopped growing in June 2023 and its rate of decline is accelerating,” detailed the Ministry of Employment.
“To this is added Hotels and restaurants, which had reached a maximum level of employment in August 2023 and which, starting the following month, began to reduce its level of employment (although in the last month there is a growth in the level formal private employment). In recent months, the following also stopped growing: Industry; Transportation, storage and communications; and—more recently—Trade and reparations,” they continued.
Put in numbers, the drop in construction was 2.6%, followed by fishing (1.2%), Agriculture, livestock, hunting and forestry (-0.5%), Community, social and personal services (-0.4%); and Manufacturing industries (-0.4 percent). And in interannual terms the construction figure is even more serious and shows a collapse of 14.6 percent.
“If we analyze the evolution of employment since the inauguration of Javier Milei, it is observed that the loss of jobs reaches 94,963. Of this total, 55,777 –58% of the total– are explained by the construction sectorn, within the framework of the political decision to completely paralyze public works,” noted a report from the Center for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA).
“Construction covers 6.1% of jobs in March 2024, as seen in the graph below. The main economic activity in terms of employment in the private sector is commerce, which accounts for 19.6% of the total. This sector lost 5,691 jobs since the inauguration of Milei,” they considered from that study center.
Analyzed by provinces, a study by the consulting firm Politikón Chaco summarized that in the last year only five governorates can show increases in the number of private jobs. For reference, with the previous month’s data there were eight. “These are Neuquén (+4.3%), Salta (+3.6%), Río Negro (+0.5%), Catamarca and CABA (+0.1% in each case),” they listed.
“On the contrary, there are eighteen provinces with interannual falls, where those of Formosa (-17.9%), La Rioja (-10.5%) and Tierra del Fuego (-10.5%) which, together with Santiago del Estero (-10.0%) They are the only provinces with double-digit declines,” they mentioned from that consulting firm run by Alejandro Pegoraro.
Outside the universe of employees, the independent work It also registered a drop of 0.9% in March, which implies 27.3 thousand fewer workers. “A decline was observed in each of the categories of independent work: in social monotax a drop of -1.4% was recorded; in monotax, -0.9%; and in the self-employed, -0.2%”, detailed the portfolio he directs Julio Cordero. In any case, when looking at it annually, independent work expanded by 5.3% (154 thousand workers), explained by 7.9% monotax and social monotax, with 1.6 percent.
A second report that accompanies the March SIPA report, also prepared by the Ministry of Employment, is the Labor Indicators Survey (EIL), which has one month less delay – it lasts until the end of April – but has a more limited scope, since it It only takes into consideration companies from a group of urban conglomerates with more than 10 workers.
In that report they also collected as data that there was a contraction in the employment of 0.4%, compared to March. “With this variation, there are five consecutive months of net employment decline in the main agglomerations of the country, and a cumulative reduction of 1.9%“, they mentioned.
“In relation to the months of April in previous years, a drop in employment similar to April 2019 is observed. Both records are the lowest for the months of April, with the exception of April 2020 (with the pandemic) and the crisis of 2001/2002. In year-on-year terms, the level of registered salaried employment falls 1.2%,” indicated the EIL. In other words, April of this year is on the podium of the years with more marked declines of employment since 2002.
This month, Indec will release the unemployment and activity rates in the labor market that correspond to the first quarter of 2024, already with the full impact of the recession of recent months. The specialists they expect a rise in the incidence of unemployment, which had shown a 5.7% last December, at minimum levels since the statistical agency resumed measurement after the statistical blackout during Kirchnerism.
