Alex Collazos is 27 years old and has been a registered driver for 5 years in the 3 operating applications in Argentina: Uber, Cabify and Didi. He says that his business is not a job. “In fact I have the letters ‘ntrprnr’ tattooed on my neck, which are the consonants of entrepreneur (entrepreneur, in English), he says he as if to clarify that he is not considered part of of the army of monotributists who record the official statistics.
From the government they boast of the low level of unemployment. According to the latest INDEC report, unemployment fell to 6.7%, but informality rises to 38.4% of the economically active populationIn round figures, the radiography of work includes nearly 20 million workers. Of that total, 6.4 million are private employees, 3.3 million are state-owned and 5 million are unregistered.
The rest are mostly mono-tax payers (1.9 million) and self-employed workers (400,000). There are bellhops, drivers of all kinds, professionals such as accountants, independent lawyers, software programmers or high-income qualified personnel. “Formal work has been at the same level since 2011 and the single tax has grown by leaps and bounds”, explains Nuria Susmel, specialist economist at Fiel.
Instead, he adds that in some cases there is “a relationship of covert dependency in both the private and state sectors”. These are people who work, carry out tasks and schedules, “but invoice their services”, instead of receiving a salary.
Faced with the context crossed by the (chronic) stagnation of the economy and high inflation, “I struggle to understand why the unemployment rate is so low”says Susmel. However, he clarifies that job creation at the moment “is based on the fall in real wages, which gives companies room to hire people”, underlines the specialist.
The economic deterioration sets the pace for the labor market in general. Eduardo Donza, a specialist who makes up the Argentine Catholic University Observatory of Argentine Social Debt (ODSA-UCA), says that, regardless of how it is measured, “job precariousness has been on the rise for more than 20 years”, a due to lack of production development.
Precariousness covers a very heterogeneous universe of activities, mostly low-skilled and subsistence: it includes street vendors, beggars, rags and window cleaners, bricklayers, mechanical workshops, refrigerator repairers, carpenters and cartoneros. Also freelance software developers, designers and skilled technicians.
For Donza, income level does not define whether a job is formal or not. “The most important thing is whether the pension contributions are paid both by the company you work for and by self-employment”, distinguishes the expert. Under this slogan, he currently assures it “Half of Argentine workers lack social security”.
Most puzzling is the rise and landing of tech platforms, including Uber, Cabify, PedidosYa, and Rappi, which operate in a virtually unregulated regime and are therefore able to offer low-cost transportation and logistics services. On this aspect, Donza underlines that “the question must be taken into consideration”, but he recognizes it “Governments don’t know what to do, nor how they will be integrated into current labor legislation”.
In exchange, the app workers themselves refuse to unionize or be regulated. Partly out of fear of traditional guild methods. And the same, because the new generations (like the millennials) are asking for flexible hours and the freedom to work according to their own interests and needs. Even if this involves the risk of not having social or patrimonial coverage on one’s means of work: cars, motorcycles or bicycles.
Collazos is known among app drivers and distributors for his YouTube channel, Don Huberto, which he has 79,800 followerswho follow his advice to increase income: he talks about the best times and areas, how to reduce expenses and how to take advantage of promotional days.
“In the first few weeks of the month, there’s more demand, because that’s when people get paid. On average you can raise $3,000 per hour, but then it shrinks,” he describes. He also says that some work 8 to 12 hours a day; and for others to do it as a side job. However, Collazos explains that while the income may be high, many do not take into account the wear and tear on invested capital: mobile phone, backpacks, motorbikes or bicycles.
“Most appreciate the freedom of not having bosses, but you don’t get paid when you get sick, holidays or Christmas bonuses. This is very misleading. Many call themselves workers, but I am an entrepreneur. I don’t want to have schedules, nor do ordered tasks: I like living alone,” said the young man.
“Faced with inflation above 8%, informal sector wage earners and those receiving subsidies such as the AUH are the biggest losers. having said it, How to convince those who depend on apps (drivers or delivery men) that precariousness is bad. This is incomprehensible,” remarks Claudio Caprarulo, economist at the consulting firm Analytica.
PedidosYa was the pioneer company to arrive in the country, the unicorn of Uruguayan origin (now belongs to the German group Delivery Hero) landed in 2010 and today is present in more than 100 cities and directly employs 2,200 employees. Moreover, They have 35,000 registered resellerswho average about $1,000 an hour, the company said.
Uber and Spain’s Cabify landed in 2016. Cabify operates in 6 cities and plans to add 8 more over the next 2 years. In 2022, 49,000 people took trips. “Of this total, between 20 and 25 percent did so full-time, with an income of between $420,000 and $560,000 a month,” Diego Céspedes, a senior executive at the company, told Clarín.
Source: Clarin
