Unemployment in Argentina Falls to 8.2% In Third Quarter of 2021

"The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent of the economically active population," the Economy Ministry reported in a statement.

This indicator contracted 3.5 percentage points compared to the same period in 2020, when it was 11.7 percent.

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Unemployment thus affects 1.1 million people, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec).

The portfolio headed by Minister Martin Guzman stressed that the unemployment rate is lower than before the covid-19 pandemic "and is also below the averages of 2019 (9.8 percent); 2018 (9.2 percent) and 2017 (8.4 percent).

"We are experiencing a very strong recovery in employment, which in the third quarter was fully explained by its growth in the private sector," Guzman highlighted by noting that 422,000 jobs were created.

The activity rate, representing the economically active population over the total population (13.5 million inhabitants), reached 46.7 percent of the people, representing an increase of 0.8 percentage points concerning the second quarter, when it was 45.9 percent.

This indicator was also up 4.4 percentage points from the same stretch in 2020 when it was 42.3 percent.

The employment rate, which measures the proportion of employed persons in relation to the entire population, reached 42.9 percent in the third quarter, up 1.4 percentage points concerning the previous period and up 8.1 percentage points in the year-on-year comparison.

This indicator among women was lower (45.9 percent) than men (63.7 percent).

UNDER-EMPLOYMENT

One of the Argentine labor market features is represented by under-occupation, that is, a person who works less than 35 hours per week but is willing to work more hours.

The underemployment rate reached 12.2 percent of the economically active population (EAP), representing a decrease of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.

"The pressure on the labor market, made up by the universe of unemployed, underemployed, employed demanders and available employed non-demanders, reached 31.3 percent of the EAP in the third quarter of the year", the Indec stated.

Concerning the same quarter of 2020, the contraction was off 1.2 percentage points when differentiating between those who wanted a job (8.3 percent) and those who did not (3.9 percent).

Within the employed population, 72 percent are wage earners, another 23.3 percent are self-employed, four percent are employers, and 0.7 percent are unpaid family employees.

Of those with jobs, 49.5 percent belong to one of four branches: commerce (which employs 18.8 percent of the employed), manufacturing industry (10.3 percent), financial, rental, or business services (10.5 percent), and public administration, defense and social security (9.9 percent).

Due to the country's economic crisis, worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, the government of Alberto Fernández extended until December 31 a law prohibiting layoffs, which has been in force since the beginning of the health emergency in March 2020.