President Javier Milei’s government has racked up a negative balance in the formal job market: between November 2023, the month prior to his inauguration, and May 2025, more than 220,000 recorded jobs have been lost and over 15,000 companies have disappeared.
The figures come from a new report by the Centro de Economía Política Argentina (CEPA) based on data from the SIPA (Sistema Integrado Previsional Argentino) pension fund system.
The fall amounts to a 2.27-percent contraction among registered wage earners in production units, which dropped from 9,857,173 to 9,633,636 employees in only 18 months.
Job losses were concentrated in key sectors of the economy. Public administration, defence and social security accounted for over 98,600 losses, followed by construction with 80,873. There were also declines in transport and storage (54,935) and in manufacturing (39,016).
The contraction of formal jobs, both private and public, did not translate into such a significant increase in the unemployment rate, however, because self-employment increased, especially monotributo taxpayers.
Analysts consulted by Perfil said this reflected a “precarisation” of employment overall in Argentina.
At the Politikon Chaco consultancy firm, a slight improvement was detected in May 2025: registered employment rose 0.1 percent compared with April, equivalent to about 6,000 new jobs. However, when compared with the start of Milei’s administration, the balance remains negative: nearly 100,000 jobs have been lost in seasonally adjusted terms.
“The monthly increase in May was supported by job growth in such sectors as transport services, storage and communications (0.6 percent), electricity, gas and water (0.4 percent) and trade (0.3 percent). Other sectors such as hotels and restaurants (0.2 percent), real estate, corporate and rental services (0.2 percent) and health social services (0.1 percent) also experienced rises,” a report noted.
A look at employment levels in May 2025 compared to November 2023 reveals that only three sectors recorded growth: fishing (10 percent), agriculture and cattle (3.3 percent) and trade (2.2 percent). By contrast, the steepest declines were in mining and quarrying (down 4.4 percent) and construction (down 13.6 percent).
On labour market dynamics, analysts at consultancy LCG argued that “the adjustment continues to come via prices (wages) rather than quantities (unemployment).” They stressed that “even though unemployment is not rising, low-quality jobs are gaining ground.”
“Without taking into account monotributo social taxpayers, in the last year and a half the loss of private and public payroll employees was proportional to the increase of sole traders and monotributo taxpayers,” they illustrated. In other words, the growth of self-employment partly offset the more than 220,000 formal jobs which vanished.
In the near future, the consultancy anticipated a “weak and uneven growth.” In turn, they warned that real wage gains would not be sustainable due to the recent hike of the official exchange rate and its impact on prices, which will surely overtake the one-percent cap set by the government for wage-bargaining negotiations.
15,000 companies gone
Between November 2023 and May 2025, the number of employers with registered workers fell from 512,357 to 496,793, which translates into a drop of 15,564 firms in just 18 months.
“The transport and storage sector was the hardest hit, losing 4,094 employers” in that period, reads the CEPA report. “Other industries also suffered significant drops: real-estate services fell by 2,617, wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles lost 2,387 employers, professional, scientific and technical services fell by 1,783 and construction sustained a loss of 1,669 employers over the same period.”
Focusing on corporate downsizing, the most affected firms were those with up to 500 workers (99.69 percent). In contrast, employers with more than 500 workers accounted for only 0.31 percent (49 cases).
Larger companies downsized the most: three out of four jobs destroyed ( 165,625 cases) were at firms with more than 500 employees. Small and medium-sized enterprises absorbed the rest of the adjustment, with 57,912 fewer jobs, or 26 percent of the total loss recorded between November 2023 and May 2025.
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