This week the multinational Accenture announced to his 12,500 collaborators in the country that 20% of their salaries will be paid in dollars. In this way it joined other companies that had already started offering this form of payment as a benefit to their workers. In general, these are companies of the technology field, looking for a way to “keep the talent” in the face of competition for some human resources which, after the pandemic, has become more global.

consulted by clarion Accenture sources declined to provide details on the company’s compensation policies, but this newspaper was able to confirm that the company has decided dollarize part of the salary of employees in key positions e up to 10% of the assets of the entire workforce.

“The priority is people, talent. We have many programs to attract and retain the best talent and grow them. We have these policies tailored to the needs of our people to support a strategy of continuous growth in the local market and in the export of servicescompany spokesmen said.

Several companies in the industry had already started offering their salaries in dollars. This is nothing new for employees in the technology sector: two of the most important Argentine unicorns began dollarising part of the salaries of these and other key profiles more than two years ago as a way of preserve their competitiveness against inflation and the remuneration offered in other latitudes.

And they are not the only ones. “The collaborators of oula in Argentina they can request to collect a percentage of their net salary in dollars which, depending on the position, varies between 10% and 40%. For his part, the total amount to be received as a performance bonus is also in foreign currency”, said Diego Solveira, Human Resources Director of the fintech founded by Pierpaolo Barbieri.

Solveira clarified that in both cases, “the official listing of BNA is expected. It is a benefit that our collaborators greatly appreciate, as it builds for more people to choose to work and pay taxes in Argentina.”

This is established by the Argentine employment contract law up to 20% of a worker’s salary can be paid “in kind” and many companies take advantage of this caveat in order to “improve” part of the remuneration by offering it in hard currency. But the exchange rate is a problem: access to the foreign exchange market is increasingly limited and it limits the ability of companies to get hold of those dollars.

Faced with this limitation, in a digital bank they decided creatively “dollarize” the salaries of the hierarchical positions. The remuneration of these positions is fixed in dollars, but the workers receive it in pesos, linked to the price of the “Euro MP Dollar” of the day on which the wage settlements are closed.

The president of the Argentine Chamber of Software Industry (CESSI), Sergio Candelo, explained at the request of clarion that the idea of ​​offering, at least a portion, of the remuneration in dollars is current in its sector, although the limits of the stocks mean that the situations are varied.

“There are companies that, through their operations, have access to freely available dollars, which They don’t have to go through the Central Bank. In that case they can offer up to 20% of salaries in this currency. It will depend on a case-by-case basis, on the profile of the companies. Others can access the dollar on the exchange,” she explained.

“There are many realities, but it is a sector in great demand in the world and after the pandemic, which made work the norm in many businesses, employment relationships have spread. Now an Argentine does not need to expatriate to work in a company that offers abroad a salary starting at US$4,000 a month. Local businesses have to find a way to compete with that,” he said.

Candelo acknowledged that the “tech dollar” announced by the government last October has limited impact. “Exporting companies in the knowledge economy sector that show an increase in their foreign sales quarter by quarter compared to what they exported in the last quarter of 2021 can enter this program. It is something very specific, which does not change the reality of the sector “.

Candelo explained that the sector, which is the third largest driver of income per dollar in the country, has another difficulty. “The gap creates another difficulty for exports. The dollars that enter must be liquidated on the official market at half the value that is taken on the street,” she said.

“So, in order to pay for the $50 hour of programming that is paid around the world, and for the employee to receive the same amount in his pocket, the company must sell that hour at double its value. With the risk that eventually , the overseas lawsuit will be stopped,” he added.