Informal labour in recession and growth: A new structural feature of labour markets in Argentina?

During the last years, Argentina has undergone a ‘miraculous’ recovery that involved unprecedented growth rates and a swift reversal of the record levels of unemployment and poverty that had accompanied the recession and crisis of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The shifts in macroeconomic policymaking that occurred in 2002 and 2003 helped both to boost the competitiveness of the domestic economy and to revitalize the domestic market. Accompanying these shifts, the government’s discourse departed from the neoliberal blueprint and started to argue for the reregulation of the economy as a way to achieve growth with social inclusion. But these more progressive political goals have been conditioned by the depth of the neoliberal transformation of the economy and the social fabric undergone during the previous decade. GDP growth, lower unemployment and more progressive policies fell short to significantly reduce the high levels of informal employment. 

Our paper will examine the scope and limitations of the changes in labour markets and progressive labour policies. To do so we will explore the limitations of policies aimed at increasing employment and reducing the incidence of informality within labour markets. We will also consider the implications of social policy designed to provide precarious alternatives to a sizeable segment of the labour force within the growing sector identified as the social economy. Our aim is thus to show some of the trends in the economic recovery of Argentina that reveals unwavering tendencies toward the segmentation of labour markets.