The government is deepening cuts to public employment just as unemployment has risen again and while the economy, despite closing 2025 with growth, still shows signs of fragility in employment and activity. This is where the chainsaw stops being an abstract banner of austerity and becomes a concrete debate about state capacity. The magnitude of the cut projected for 2026 ultimately confirms that the government does not consider its downsizing mission fulfilled. In parallel, a report from the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation counted 60,494 fewer jobs between December 2023 and November 2025, with the government's own estimated savings of $2.444 billion. This cut is also happening at a more delicate time for the labor market. With more than 62,000 jobs already cut since the start of the administration and a new target of up to 27,000 additional layoffs, Mileism seeks to leave a structural mark on the size of the Argentine state. INDEC reported this week that unemployment reached 7.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to 6.4% a year earlier. The decision confirms that the chainsaw on the state apparatus has not entered a phase of retreat but has just entered a second, deeper, and more sensitive stage. The news is that, unlike the first two years of the administration, when the downsizing was concentrated mainly in the central administration, the focus now shifts to decentralized bodies. If this objective is met, the adjustment would affect more than 27,000 positions. What remains to be seen is whether this adjustment manages to consolidate as an improvement in efficiency, as the ruling party promises, or if it ends up deepening labor tensions, weakening sensitive areas, and adding more noise to an economy that still does not offer unlimited political margin to keep cutting. In January, it toughened the conditions for new hires and coverage of vacancies through Administrative Decision 1/2026, and in February, the Secretariat of State Transformation and Public Function set staffing ranges to limit the expansion of political and contracted personnel. Compared to December 2023, when the workforce was 341,473 people, the accumulated contraction exceeds 62,000 jobs. Buenos Aires, March 22, 2026 - Total News Agency - TNA - The national government is preparing to advance in the coming days with a new wave of cuts in public employment that, in a first stage, aims to eliminate between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs and that, throughout 2026, would seek to reduce by around 10% the total workforce of the national administration, state-owned companies, and societies. In the Casa Rosada, they maintain that many of the layoffs will arise from annual contracts that will not be renewed, to which will be added voluntary retirements and the closure or merger of areas considered duplicated, overlapping, or obsolete. But in practice, the new wave of layoffs threatens to open a more conflictive front, because it no longer limits itself to low-profile central offices but touches decentralized areas that have a more visible impact on daily life, from social security and infrastructure to regulation, science, technology, and public services. In March, ANSES approved a retirement regime for 'mutual consent,' and at the end of January, the National Directorate of Roads did the same with its voluntary retirement system. The official figures show that the adjustment has already been strong. INDEC's monthly report on public sector staffing for January 2026 registered a total of 278,705 employees in the national public administration, state-owned companies, and societies. This logic has already started to move to concrete cases. The context makes the political discussion harsher: for the ruling party, the adjustment is an inevitable step to make the state more efficient; for its critics, it means shrinking public structures at a time of greater social vulnerability. The administration of Javier Milei gave other signals in this direction. That level implies a 16.5% year-on-year decrease and a reduction of 1,415 jobs just compared to December. The underlying idea is clear: not only to fire or not renew, but also to block the replacement of positions so that the adjustment is permanent and not reversible by simple bureaucratic inertia. Politically, the government is trying to present this new stage as a necessary purification. Federico Sturzenegger and his ministry have been maintaining that the objective is to reduce spending, eliminate inefficiencies, and concentrate the state on essential functions.
