Lack of work is a problem for both the stomach and the social mood of Argentines

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (AFP) Fatima, Stefani, and Carlos Alberto go every day to a soup kitchen in La Boca, a traditional neighborhood of Buenos Aires. When everything closed down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, they had to stop working, and now they watch helplessly as inflation eats away at the little money they produce.

“I’ve been coming to the canteen for five months. I was never in need before. I always had a job and earned well, but after the pandemic, I no longer do. Every day I send a resume, nobody calls me,” says Stéfani Chinguel, 23 years old.

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In a container, this young woman takes two lunches: one for herself and the other for her partner, who does have a formal job in a store but with a salary that is not enough for them.

“My boyfriend sometimes gets a salary increase, but 1,000 pesos (9 dollars), it is not in line with the price increase”, which this year accumulates 41.8% and is one of the highest in the world.

Among the jobs he has had since the age of 18, Stéfani took care of the elderly and sold cars. Now she goes to the Comedor not only to look for food but also for the chance to be given a job in the kitchen, which is rewarded with a state subsidy equivalent to half the minimum wage of 32,000 pesos a month (US$300 at the official exchange rate).

“Many people want to work here, but there are no vacancies,” says Edith Cusipaucar (40), mother of six children, who has been working in the canteen for years.

She also receives 15,000 pesos a month (US$145) from the State to support her three youngest children. But every night, she goes out to sell food at a street stall. “Do you think that with a salary of 15,400 pesos, you can support a family?” she asks.

In La Boca and other disadvantaged neighborhoods of the Argentine capital, such as Bajo Flores, soup kitchens have sprung up on almost every corner, run by social movements with help from the State. Most of them occupy small premises and deliver food to take out.

INFORMAL WORK, REDUCED WAGES

Fatima Gomez works in a maintenance company and, although she did not lose her job, during the quarantine in 2020 and afterward, she found no offices to clean. As a result, her salary was cut practically in half, and for the first time in her life, she went to get lunches at a soup kitchen, where they gave her for herself, her three children, and her granddaughter.

“I work to survive. If I don’t pick up the food, we don’t make ends meet. It’s not enough. Maybe you eat at noon and not at night,” explains this woman who has lived in a “conventillo” (boarding house) for 20 years.

Carlos Alberto Álvarez, 61, is a street vendor but says that nothing can be done now. “On the street, the police run us off. They don’t let us work.” “I come because of need, because of hunger. There is no work; that’s why we come to look for food,” he says.

The unemployment rate in Argentina was 9.6% in the second quarter of this year, while underemployment reached 12.4%. The poverty rate is 40.6%.

SOCIAL UNREST

“The pandemic accelerated processes that were already taking place in the world, where there was more and more everyday work and unrecognized work. When, from one day to the next, the circulation of people and, consequently, of the economy, is stopped, a system that was not prepared to include all people is exposed”, points out Ezequiel Barbenza, professor at the Universidad del Salvador.

During the 2020 quarantine, the State offered exceptional aid for informal workers affected by the economic paralysis. “It was conceived for 3 million people, 12 million signed up, and it was granted to 9 million. It showed a huge universe”, Barbenza points out.

The lack of employment goes together with inflation and personal insecurity. According to political scientist Diego Reynoso, in charge of a public opinion survey at the University of San Andrés, this issue worries Argentines the most.

“It generates a lot of uncertainty to people and very great uneasiness. There is a society that is very gloomy, angry, dissatisfied, with a fatalistic mood, which it channels towards the government”, says the analyst, referring to the mid-term parliamentary elections this Sunday, in which the ruling coalition Frente de Todos runs the risk of losing its majority in the Senate.

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