| Work Detail |
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. The drop once again exceeded 20,000 workers for the second consecutive month and the largest year-on-year contraction was observed since the end of the pandemic.
The crisis in construction due to the adjustment in public works carried out by Javier Mileis government and the recession caused the loss of 72,000 jobs.
In January, the latest data available, the drop once again exceeded 20,000 workers for the second consecutive month and the largest year-on-year contraction was observed since the end of the pandemic.
Companies in this industry, the union and analysts anticipate that the trend is far from reversing in the coming months.
The accumulated number of layoffs exceeds 100,000 employees if activities linked to construction are taken into account, and another 200,000 are in danger.
The Institute of Statistics and Registration of the Construction Industry (Ieric) published a provisional report in which they verified 372,311 jobs registered in the sector during January 2024.
«For the second consecutive month, the employment volume marked a drop of more than 20,000 registered workers, and completes a five-month string of decline in the level of sectoral employment, with a loss of just over 72,000 jobs since August 2023? , they indicated.
On the other hand, they highlighted that the record for the month was 12.1% lower than that of the same period in 2023, which constituted the most intense contraction since the end of the pandemic according to Ieric.
«The fall in sectoral employment compared to December was 5.6%, the deepest rate in the historical series for the month of January. This negative monthly variation rate more than quadruples the historical average for the first month of the year. The decrease was explained both by the lower number of registered establishments and by the drop in the average workforce of construction firms," ??they explained.
The Ieric is made up of the Construction Workers Union of the Argentine Republic (Uocra) and the Argentine Chamber of Construction (Camarco). There is still strong concern in the sector about the loss of jobs.
From Uocra they highlighted that this process began to be observed last July and that in February the loss of jobs had amounted to 80,000 lost positions.
This decrease, they stated, is related to the adjustment in national and provincial public works, which historically accounted for 25% of jobs.
«These 360,000 jobs with which we started March will continue to decline given that none of the causes that motivated the decline have been reversed. Even in large works, a significant number remained in the plant due to the figure of suspension, a situation that ceased during March," they warned.
The latest data on sector activity available show that the recession continued to have its effect. Cement consumption fell 23.5% in February, both in the stock market and in bulk, and was the most pronounced contraction since April 2016, even stronger than that in the pre-pandemic months.
On the other hand, the drop in the sale of materials from the Construya Group was more abrupt. The Index that measures the entity that brings together the main companies that produce inputs registered in February its lowest level since 2006 to date.
For its part, the data from the Synthetic Indicator of Construction Activity (Isac) from Indec showed a noticeable drop for January among the most relevant inputs in the sector: Asphalt (60%) and Round Iron (39% year-on-year). |
