Hernán Lacunza accused the Government of showing biased data when comparing the fall in current employment with the Macri administration

08/25/2020 - 10:15

• Clarín.com
• Economy
• Economy

Former Minister of Economy Hernán Lacunza came across a series of tweets from the Ministry of Labor, which argued that this year the loss of jobs and the purchasing power of wages had been less than what had happened in the last year of the management of Mauricio Macri.

The Ministry of Labor showed on its official Twitter account on Monday a series of graphs comparing data from 2019 and 2020. "In the first five months of 2020, in labor terms, product of ATP and measures such as ban on layoffs and double severance pay, Argentina achieved that the drop in registered employment is less than that of 2019, under the previous administration, "said the portfolio commanded by Claudio Moroni in a tweet.

He also noted that "the year-on-year variation in real wages for private registered employment and employment fell half of what it lost in 2019." According to the graph that it showed in May 2019, it had fallen 8.3%, against 4% in May 2020.

And a third graph compares the drop in employment (always private formal salaried) during the pandemic against all of 2019 in several countries (USA, Brazil) where it is shown that Argentina fell much less.

So far this year, the year-on-year variation of real wages in private registered employment and employment fell by half of what it lost in 2019. pic.twitter.com/cNYOZBO2qr

Quick to reflect , Lacunza -who was just in charge of the Economy during the last stretch of the previous government- accused Labor of "adding confusion" with " fragmented data (without informal, autonomous, or self-employed) and heterogeneous periods (one quarter versus one year) "to an Argentine labor reality that" is already complex (with a pandemic-quarantine, more) ".

The former minister explained that total registered employment had lost 1,000 jobs in the February-May 2019 quarter, while in the same period of 2020, 322,000 jobs had disappeared.

And if only private salaried workers were taken into account, the fall was 23,000 in February-May 2019, against 149,000 in the same period this year. and 152,000 in the last quarter of 2019. "Even (with) the most protected employment (double severance + prohibition of layoffs + ATP aid), the drop is 6.5 times higher," Lacunza compared. And it also showed that the falls were greater this year in terms of monotributistas and self-employed, based on data from the SIPA.

1. The Argentine labor reality is already complex (with a pandemic-quarantine, more) to add confusion with fragmented data (without informal, self-employed, or self-employed) and heterogeneous periods (one quarter versus one year) pic.twitter.com / zu6fTap4vG

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