When Factories Shut And Coders Hire: Argentina’s Uneven Industrial Shake-Up
(Analysis) Argentina’s industrial map is being redrawn at high speed. Since November 2023, about 19,164 companies with registered workers have disappeared, nearly 30 a day.
In the same period, roughly 276,000 formal jobs in productive firms have been lost, even as economic indicators start to improve. The government of Javier Milei has combined fiscal shock therapy with a rapid opening of imports and a strong peso.
For consumers, the shift means cheaper electronics, clothing and appliances after years of scarcity, controls and high prices. For many factories, it means margins crushed overnight by foreign competition they were never required to face.
Supporters see a long-delayed correction to distortions built up under decades of heavy protection and intervention. Whirlpool’s decision to close its three-year-old washing-machine plant in Pilar has become a symbol of the new era.
The company invested 50 million dollars to produce 300,000 high-end units a year, planning to export 70% of output.
With local costs far above regional rivals and imported appliances now around 20% cheaper on average, the numbers no longer worked; 220 workers were laid off and Whirlpool will stay only as an importer and distributor.
Official data show the broader stress. In September 2025, Argentine industry used 61.1% of its installed capacity, slightly below a year earlier.
Textiles operate at around 44%, overwhelmed by low-cost imports from Asia and the explosive arrival of platforms such as Shein and Temu. Construction and manufacturing remain well below their 2023 levels despite a modest rebound this year.
Yet the picture is not simply one of collapse. Knowledge-based services – software, digital platforms, professional and creative industries – are quietly becoming a new export engine. Between July 2024 and June 2025, this sector sold about 9.7 billion dollars abroad and added thousands of high-skill jobs.
For Argentina, the question is whether this shift becomes a rebalancing or a lopsided deindustrialisation. If reforms to taxes, labour rules and infrastructure succeed in narrowing the cost gap with neighbours like Brazil, some production could stabilise on a more competitive footing.
If not, the country risks an economy where industrial chimneys fall silent while pockets of high-tech talent prosper in isolation.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief