For CEPA (Center for Political Economy of Argentina): “Even recovering all the positions in force at the beginning of 2020, the level reached is structurally low given that, prior to the start of the pandemic, private employment was already in a critical situation: the crisis of the Government of Cambiemos meant the net destruction of 276 thousand jobs (as of December 2019) that have not been recovered either”.
In relation to the sectors of activity, in November thirteen of the fifteen sectors increased the number of workers. Particularly in November, the recovery was driven by Construction (+5.4 thousand), Industry (+4.3 thousand) and Hotels and Restaurants (+3.8). Despite the good general performance, two sectors reduced their workforce. They are Agriculture (-3 thousand) and Community and Social Services (-0.1 thousand).
As has happened in previous months, the heterogeneity in the sectors remains but, according to the CEPA analysis: “it is possible to observe that the sectoral heterogeneity of the recovery is reduced. With the increase in employment in November, six of the fourteen sectors already operating at employment levels higher than pre-pandemic, another three continue to grow and are approaching said threshold and of the remaining five, which continued to destroy jobs after August 2020, only two do not currently create jobs.
sectors in recovery
Within the dynamic sectors, the growth shown by the industrial sector stands out. With the variation of the last month, this sector has already created more than 35 thousand jobs above the February 2020 threshold, reaching the best performance since February 2019. Another sector to mention is Real Estate, with a balance of more than 32 thousand jobs created in relation to pre-pandemic.
Lastly, the Construction sector, whose recovery was one of the fastest, largely offsetting the significant initial negative impact of the pandemic. In this sector, the promotion of public works played an important role as a catalyst for activity.
Among the recovering sectors, Mining grew for the twelfth consecutive month and Teaching did so for the fifth consecutive month. In general terms, these sectors are already at less than 3% of pre-pandemic levels, which means that, if they continue on this path, they will soon have recovered all the negative effect of Covid.
By last, Within the sectors in crisis, the most affected has been Hotels and Restaurants. This activity experienced a significant rise in the last month and has accumulated five consecutive months of growth, possibly due to the proximity to the tourist season and the positive impact of the Pre-Trip program. It is estimated that in the months of December, January and February, it will rebound due to the good numbers of tourism.
Likewise, Transportation and Finance also performed well in November, although they are still significantly below pre-pandemic levels.
Finally, the data showed that in November 2021, 15 of the 24 provinces already have more private jobs than in February 2020. The NEA is the region that shows the greatest dynamism, while the Central region begins to accompany said recovery. For its part, CABA, the Cuyo region and the NOA are the regions most affected by the pandemic.
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