Official data for the third quarter of 2025 showed a decrease in Argentina's unemployment rate to 6.6% in 31 urban agglomerations. This is a 1 percentage point drop from the previous quarter. At the same time, the country created 240,000 new jobs compared to the same period last year. However, behind these positive figures lies a serious problem—the deterioration in job quality. The demand for labor was mostly absorbed by informal employment. The informality rate rose to 43.3%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points. Among salaried workers, 36.7% did not have pension contributions, which is well above the historical average. These figures correspond to data from the SIPA, which indicates that over 200,000 formal jobs have been lost since the beginning of Javier Milei's administration. While the government and its allied media outlets are celebrating the drop in unemployment, experts warn that the labor reform, scheduled for discussion in February, could only exacerbate the problem of precarity.
