President Javier Milei used the opening of the ordinary sessions of Congress to fully delve into one of the most pressing questions for factories, businesses, and homes since the closure of industrial companies and the loss of registered jobs: if traditional employment is shrinking, where will jobs be generated in the Argentina of the future? This is a key point for discussion: if the sectors that grow the most are simultaneously less labor-intensive—or incorporate technology that replaces tasks—the transition to this “energy Argentina” may take longer to translate into concrete jobs for those who are left out. The examples are eloquent. That is, even if the jobs projected by the RIGI were to be fulfilled, the labor market arrives battered with wounds concentrated in traditional sectors. A concrete reference helps to understand the actual dynamic of employment in mining: the $18,000 million investment that the company Vicuña will make in San Juan over the next decade to produce copper. The government bets that the energy and mining Argentina will be the factory of opportunities for the next decade. “Many fear that there will be a lack of work in Argentina tomorrow, but we do not,” Milei stated. The contrast becomes even harsher when looking at the most “labor-intensive” sectors, such as industry and construction: according to a researcher at the CTA Autónoma's Institute for Studies and Training, industry has fallen back 8% in two years and lost 3.2% of its jobs; construction fell 14% and formal employment was reduced by 17.6%. Against this backdrop, the government seeks to uphold its labor promise with a central tool: the Regime of Incentives for Large Investments (RIGI). Guided by this idea, he listed sectors that, according to the President, could expand in the coming years: petrochemicals, steel, aluminum, hydrogen, lithium processing, and critical minerals. The challenge is that this bridge between promise and labor reality requires time, sustained investment, infrastructure, worker training, and—above all—a less painful transition for those coming from the “old industries” who now look to the future with uncertainty. On the street, the question is not epic: it is simple and urgent. In mines and quarries, activity increased by 16% in the same period, while employment in oil, gas, and mining fell by 3.3%. “Where there is abundant and cheap energy, heavy industry is installed,” he affirmed before the legislators. His response was firm and at the same time ambitious: the future—according to his vision—is in the energy and mining leap, with oil, gas, and electricity at competitive prices as a platform to reindustrialize the country with new value chains and better wages. At the heart of his argument, Milei posited that “cheap energy” will be the cross-cutting input capable of changing the geography of production and attracting capital-intensive investments. A large part of the social and political climate of the coming months will be played out between this promise and this reality. “All these new industries will more than compensate for the demand for employment withdrawn by the old industries, and with much better salaries,” he assured. He pointed out that between 2024 and 2025, agriculture, mines and quarries (oil, gas, and mining), and financial intermediation expanded strongly, but employment in these activities barely grew and even fell. But it also shows the critical point: the peak of employment usually concentrates in construction and then falls in operation, with a smaller, more stable, technical, and specialized workforce. Furthermore, the discussion is not just Argentine. It is the model the government imagines as a multiplier: large works, stages, value chains. In this sense, Milei's approach seeks to establish a strategic response: energy and minerals as a competitive advantage, and technology as the new frontier. The data, for now, marks that recent growth coexists with a fall in formal employment and that the sectors driving activity do not necessarily absorb labor to the necessary magnitude. In industry alone, 65,000 formal jobs were lost in the last two years, according to records from the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA). And, as part of his political style, he linked this promise to a direct criticism of Kirchnerism and the obstacles to mining: he highlighted the potential of the Andes and stated that with rules similar to Chile's, the country could achieve “a million real jobs,” contrasting them with what he described as “invented” public employment to mask labor problems. However, the debate arrived loaded with a paradox already reflected in the numbers: while the economy accumulates two consecutive years of growth—with an improvement of over 10%, according to Milei himself—in the same period, formal employment was lost. “Cheap energy is the cross-cutting input that changes the industrial location equation. In the financial sector, despite an 18.7% increase in activity, employment fell by 2%”. Official data from the Argentine Integrated Pension System (SIPA), prepared by the Secretariat of Labor, mark that between November 2023—the month before the assumption of the current government—and November 2025, the last available record, there was a net loss of 192,400 private salaried registered jobs. If the reduction in public employment associated with the State's adjustment policy is added, the total drop in registered salaried workers exceeds 270,000 positions. This gap between activity and employment is not only explained by a specific recession in some sectors but by a more structural phenomenon: growth did not always “spill over” into registered employment, even in branches that improved their performance. Looking ahead, there are 12 projects approved to enter the regime, which would involve disbursements of $26,623 million and project the creation of 35,600 jobs, according to official data. The project will require 12,000 direct workers at the peak of construction and, already in operation, projects 5,000 direct jobs, plus 19,000 indirect ones through service providers ranging from daily catering to logistics, maintenance, cleaning, and waste collection. In agriculture, activity would have grown 41% in the last two years, but employment rose only 1.8%. However, the challenge is one of scale and timing. Labor specialist Luis Campos provided an analysis that complicates linear optimism. The question of how jobs will be created in a context of technological change and automation crosses the world's economies. In the same passage, he added a picture that seeks to install a technological horizon: data centers and computing capacity in Patagonia, leveraged—he said—in the natural cold and in a more robust energy system, creating “unique conditions” for infrastructure linked to Artificial Intelligence. The message sought to bring calm to those who fear a smaller labor market due to technological advancement or the transition from one productive model to another. The figure serves as an anchor for the official discourse: big investment, associated jobs, suppliers, logistics, services. When does the employment appear and for whom?
