Argentina Kept Unemployment Low by Making the Jobs Worse
Economy
Key Facts
—The study. The Catholic University’s social debt observatory published its Working Paper 2026/1 on July 8, covering 2010 to 2025.
—The thesis. Researchers call it labour disintegration without open unemployment.
—The switch. Jobless people moving into informal self-employment rose from 24.1% to 29.5% between the 2011-13 and 2023-25 windows.
—The mirror. Over the same windows, jobless people reaching a formal or public post fell from 24.1% to 19.6%.
—The leak. Movement out of formal work into informal self-employment climbed from 4.8% to 6.2%.
—The prize. A registered private-sector worker is eighteen times likelier to sit in the top income bracket.
The Argentina labor market has performed a quiet trick over fifteen years. A growing workforce was absorbed without pushing unemployment up, and the price was paid in the quality of the work itself.
That is the finding of a working paper published on Wednesday by the Catholic University of Argentina and its social debt observatory. The authors, Ramiro Robles, Alejo Giannecchini and Valentina Ledda, give the phenomenon a name in their own abstract.
They call it labour disintegration without open unemployment. More Argentines are working; fewer of them hold a job worth having.
The paper draws on microdata from the permanent household survey covering urban Argentina. Its window runs from 2010, under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, through the Macri years and the pandemic to the present.
What the Argentina labor market data actually shows
The most telling number is a pair. Compare the three years to 2013 with the three years to 2025, and watch where an unemployed Argentine ends up.
In the earlier window the two destinations were evenly matched. Just over twenty-four percent moved into informal self-employment, and precisely the same share found formal or public sector wage work.
By the later window the two lines had pulled apart. Informal self-employment took nearly thirty percent while formal work absorbed under twenty, so the informal route is now roughly half as likely again as the formal one.
A third figure completes the picture. The flow running the wrong way, from a registered job into informal self-employment, rose from under five percent to over six.
Inside the micro-informal world the composition shifted too. Los Andes, citing the study, reports that informal workers on nobody’s payroll grew from about twenty-eight percent to nearly thirty-two, while informal wage-earners fell.
That is the shape of what is often called the uberisation of work. Infobae notes that those who lose formal jobs increasingly turn to delivery platforms, a market now showing signs of saturation and falling pay.
Growth without registered jobs
The observatory identifies the mechanism plainly. Argentina’s dynamic sectors are natural resources, finance and business services, and none of them employs many people.
The labour-intensive sectors are the unproductive ones aimed at the domestic market. Growth therefore arrives without the registered employment that used to accompany it.
The report states that economic expansion coexisted with a net destruction of registered jobs. Recovering output, it says, does not by itself restore formal employment.
The report names natural resources, finance and business services as those dynamic sectors, which in practice means Vaca Muerta shale and the lithium salt flats. That is the fault line running under the entire investment case.
The observatory dates the intensification of labour participation to 2017 and notes it landed on a structure with few productive, regulated openings. The rebound after the crises of 2018 to 2020 did not restore job quality evenly.
Why this is not simply a verdict on Milei
The temptation is to read the paper as an indictment of the current government. The dates make that reading difficult.
The deterioration begins in 2010 and runs through Peronist and centre-right administrations alike. The observatory calls it a structural problem of Argentina, worsened by stagnation, weak productivity and regulatory fragmentation.
What the paper does say about the present is narrower and sharper. Over the last two years the market barely moved, but the movement it did make was regressive.
Robles is sceptical that the labour reform changes this. A reform aimed mainly at giving firms more flexibility, he argued, can hardly address the other leg of the problem, which is quality employment.
What the Argentina labor market means for investors
Even inside registered employment the protections have thinned. Collective bargaining coverage among formal workers has fallen, while a registered private worker remains eighteen times likelier to reach the top income bracket than everyone else.
That gap is the whole story compressed into one statistic. Formal work is not merely better; it is a different country.
The observatory frames recent mobility not as advancement but as defensive adjustment by workers with nowhere else to go. It describes the micro-informal sector as a refuge rather than an opportunity.
Robles offered no comfort about the pace of repair. He does not think the employment situation will improve in the short term.
Did unemployment rise in the Argentina labor market?
No, and that is the study’s central point, because the observatory finds a growing labour force was absorbed without pushing up open unemployment as people moved into micro-informal and self-employed work instead. The authors describe this as labour disintegration without open unemployment.
Is this the result of the Milei adjustment?
Only partly, since the study covers 2010 to 2025 and identifies a structural deterioration spanning several governments. It does find that occupational mobility over the last two years turned more regressive, with more transitions from unemployment and from formal work into informal self-employment.
What does the study say about the labour reform?
The researchers are sceptical. They argue that a reform oriented mainly towards greater flexibility for firms cannot by itself generate quality employment, because it leaves the underlying productive obstacles unresolved and discourages collective wage bargaining.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did unemployment actually go up in Argentina over this period?
No, unemployment stayed low, but that is exactly the problem the study highlights — instead of going jobless, more people ended up in informal, low-quality self-employment. The researchers call this 'labour disintegration without open unemployment.'
How much harder is it to reach a top income bracket if you work informally rather than in a registered private-sector job?
A registered private-sector worker is eighteen times more likely to be in the top income bracket than everyone else, according to the study. The researchers describe formal and informal work as essentially two different worlds in terms of earnings.
Is this deterioration in job quality a recent problem caused by the current government?
No, the study covers 2010 to 2025 and shows the decline running through multiple governments, both Peronist and centre-right. The observatory describes it as a structural problem of Argentina driven by weak productivity, stagnation, and regulatory fragmentation.
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