President Javier Milei spoke of a plan to lay off
70,000 public employees
, then the goal was reduced to
15,000,
but today no one knows for sure what the true number is. There is beginning to be talk of a significant
leak
in different agencies, but there is little official information. The cut seems to target those who are currently
hired
, that is, those who
have not accessed the permanent or temporary staff
. The permanent ones have guaranteed stability. Those of the transitional one not so much. Those hired, even if they have been providing services for many years, are close to termination, which interrupts the employment relationship with the expiration of the last signed contract.
In this sea of nuances and doubts, Decree 280/2024
was published on Wednesday
, which, in the case of public employment, has some significant data.
The decree talks about the reallocation of budget items since work continues today with the 2023 Budget Law.
In the case of public employment, article 2 of the Decree says “
The total number of positions and teaching hours
for each jurisdiction and entity of the National Administration is determined, according to the details in the form attached to this article. No
increases in positions and teaching hours may be approved that exceed the totals established
in the form attached to this article.
Later, the decree states: “In order to proceed with orderly budget execution and monitoring the evolution of the respective staffing levels, the jurisdictions and entities must send the information corresponding to all the plants to the Ministry of Finance. and personnel hiring. The Ministry of Finance must publish said report on its website.
A
salient fact
from the annex is that there will be budget items to cover the salary expense corresponding to
373,098 permanent employees and only 11,613 temporary employees.
If any dependency exceeds it, there is no way to finance it. This is only Public Administration, there are no companies or universities. If it includes Armed and Security Forces.
The latest data available on the website of the Ministry of Finance indicates, as of September 2023, that in the National Executive Branch there are:
292,896 permanent and temporary positions and
70,253 contracted positions
, giving a total of 363,149.
But at the same time there are another 34,103 permanent and temporary positions, plus 1,518 contracted ones, in
other entities of the non-financial public sector.
Finally, in
State companies and societies
there are 57,560 permanent and temporary positions and 1,516 contracted ones. In this case there are notable differences with a specific Treasury report on State companies and companies, in which it accuses a staff of nearly 92,000 people.
The general total of all these categories shows
457,846 employees who depend on the national State
. It is a mystery to determine today where the scissors will pass.
Those familiar with the ins and outs of the national public administration and its different forms of contracting point out that the most vulnerable sector of employees in terms of stability is the one governed by the working conditions established in Decree
2098 of 2008.
This decree sought to establish the mechanisms so that temporary employees would gradually transition to a permanent staff. Competitions are planned for the employees themselves - they do not admit outsiders - and at the time of Mauricio Macri's government there was talk of transferring nearly 30,000 employees to the plant. That objective was not achieved nor during the government of Alberto Fernández.
There may be the case of temporary employees who renew their contracts for 20 years. In the event of dismissal, for labor justice it was a hidden employment relationship and the State will end up paying compensation.