Claudio Moroni, Minister of Labor.
In April, formal employment continued to recover. The number of people with registered work nationwide has reached 12,615,451. In seasonally adjusted terms, it shows a positive variation of 0.6% compared to the previous month. There are 79.2 thousand more employees. Compared to the same month of the previous year, still affected by the quarantine, the registered work increased by 4.8% (572.8 thousand workers).
The 12,615 million represent the highest level of the entire series begun in 2012, above all due to the growth of the registry office among single-tax payers (they add up to 1,862,027, a record level). On the other hand, the level of formal employment among wage earners in the private sector (6,100,849) is still lower than in April 2019. In the public sector, 3,347,379 are below the December 2021 record.
The April figures from the Ministry of Labor, based on the contribution of workers to Social Security, are mainly explained by the increase in the number of taxpayers to the monotax regime (28.7 thousand people) by private sector companies (28 thousand) and of the public sector (22.3 thousand employees). On the other hand, the social monotaxis reduced (-2.5 thousand). Freelancers and private house staff had little movement.
According to the May Labor Indicators Survey (EIL), at a slower pace, recorded employment would have continued to grow but by only 0.1%.
The job report argues that monthly growth was generalized as monthly changes were positive in 12 of the 14 sectors analyzed. The branches of activity that showed the greatest monthly dynamism include hotels and restaurants (+ 2.4%), construction (+ 1.9%), fishing (+ 14%), mines and quarries (+ 0.6%) ), trade and repairs (+ 0.5%).
The report also explains that wage labor recorded in the hotel and restaurant sector was going through a bargaining phase before the pandemic. This trend deepened with the onset of the health emergency. However, the sector started showing positive rates of change in March and April 2021, fell in May and June, and returned to showing positive results over the past ten months. Beyond this recovery, the deterioration at the start of the pandemic was so profound that its current level of employment is 8.3% lower than it was in February 2020.
Construction shows twenty-one consecutive months with positive monthly variations. The 1.9% increase corresponding to April 2022 brought its employment level 8.6% above the level before the onset of the pandemic. However, it is still 10.2% lower than the industry peak reached in March 2018.
The manufacturing industry recorded an increase of 0.3%, accumulating 23 consecutive months of employment growth, and thus reaching a level of formal employment similar to that of November 2018. The growth was generalized within the sector: textiles and clothing 0.8%, wood and paper 0.1%, chemicals 0.3%, metalworking 0.5%, cars 0.9% and other manufactured goods 0.9%, food remained virtually unchanged.
The exploitation of mines and quarries is in a process of occupational recovery which has already been showing positive monthly variations for seventeen consecutive months. However, this is a sector that has not yet managed to reach the employment level it had before the start of the pandemic: it is 0.6% below the level reached at that time and 4% below the maximum reached in March 2015.
The commerce sector, of great importance as an employer sector, has registered growth since May 2021 and employment exceeds the level prior to the start of the pandemic (February 2020) by + 2.2%. However, it is still 3.4% lower than the industry high reached in December 2017.
On the contrary, within the group of sectors that recorded a monthly decline in employment there are financial intermediation (-0.1%) and social and health services (-0.4%).
Ishmael Bermudez
Source: Clarin
