With the “omnibus law” fallen and DNU 70/2023 partially and temporarily neutralized by Justice, Argentina complicates its progress towards flexibilities.
And one of the pending issues is work.
Beyond the current government's proposal: it is a requirement that comes from whoever oversees the initiative.
Because the system is in crisis.
According to INDEC, 52% of the total number of Argentine workers is made up of the sum of those who acknowledge that they do not receive legal benefits and those who are self-employed (who in many cases could or should be under a more formal legal regime).
Thus, the majority is outside the system.
In particular, the percentage of registered salaried employment in the private sector decreased since 2012 from 56% to 47.5%.
Is there anything more delegitimizing than abandonment?
We are going towards the desert.
Although it is not only the excluded who are in trouble: formalized private workers lost between January 2018 and December 2023 the equivalent of 10.4 salaries (public workers lost 12.4 salaries) due to the drop in real wages.
But perhaps the outlook is even worse: the latest global Manpower survey reveals that in Argentina 76% of companies are unable to fill their vacancies;
which shows that the problem is not only one of demand for workers but also one of supply.
It is not only about companies that do not decide to hire but also about workers who do not meet the requirement.
And, in parallel, those who reach the requirement (as part of the complexity of the new) are already looking further: in 2023, Argentina ranked third in the ranking of countries on the planet with the most employees working from their country for companies in the outside.
Part of the axis of the discussion then changes (why is quality employment not being generated?).
And a more comprehensive and multiple approach is required to improve.
The new Argentine government is proposing a new organizational model: market economy, private initiative, government limited to basic functions, deregulation and openness.
A coupling to global operating conditions.
Because the world is witnessing a strong “competitivism”: countries compete with each other to attract investors, inventors, companies and even workers (especially digital ones).
An example of this competitiveness is that (according to the Tax Foundation, measuring 181 piases) corporate tax rates have been decreasing considerably: in 1980 they averaged 40.18% (46.83% weighted by GDP) and since then they have dropped to 23.45 % in 2023 (25.67% when weighted by GDP).
Global economic activity changed.
And this is reflected in how we work.
Katherine Haan reveals (for Forbes Advisor) that today 12.7% of full-time employees work from home (there is a rapid normalization of remote work).
And that 28.2% of employees have consolidated into a hybrid work model.
But that is just a minor change if we discover the almost 200 million freelance workers registered on platforms in the world and the other 35 million who fall into the category of “digital nomads”.
The mode of production is changing and, therefore, the way of working is changing.
Which requires admitting a new paradigm that is integrated with flexibility, autonomy, customization, mutability and creation of new value.
It is on them that professional knowledge is developed, which does not only involve technical knowledge but also functional habits.
Technique and culture.
The world changed the technological framework and we must adapt if we want success.
And this demands a new comprehensive labor system (although it also demands much more).
The great innovator Ray Kurzweil says that in all technological development there are seven stages: the precursor, the inventor, development, maturity, false imitators, obsolescence and antiquity.
Well, those who are sustainably successful today are in the first stages of those 7 (in the new model), while most of us live in the last of those 7 (in the old model).
Many traps appear to us even in the crisis we are experiencing.
Among them, those who assert that the path is conflict when the path is the new organization and investment in human capital.
Which does not happen without prosperous companies and a thriving economy.
Argentina has been drowning in regulationism.
Dismantling it will allow the energy of innovators, entrepreneurs, companies, investors and also workers to be released, who today have two options: a legal regime that responds to a model that no longer exists and therefore includes less and less;
or the black market to which they are condemned by those who, by upholding the law for the old, leave them lawless in the new.
The old system no longer works.
The British Staffor Beer says that if we want to know what the purpose of a system is, we simply have to look at what it achieves (the intentions of its promoters are the great polluter when what counts is the result).
And the result of our regulatory-rigidized productive-labor system is dramatic.
This rigidization includes the scope of action of companies and also that of the relationship between workers and employers.
Today, global technological evolution gives us two options: progress within it or backwardness outside of it.
Is there anything more stimulating to think about change than failure?
Well, if not by preference, at least it will have to be done by recognition.
The great coach Greg Popovich once said that the measure of who we are is shown in how we react to what no longer turns out the way we wanted.
Marcelo Elizondo is a specialist in international business.