TECH FIRMS LEAD JOB RECOVERY AMID COMPANY EXODUS

Argentina’s tech sector is a bright spot that is creating jobs even as many companies are closing in a hostile environment of anti-business policies, high inflation and lack of access to international credit markets.

Technology is the only major private industry that has increased the number of employers since a recession began in 2018, according to data from the tax agency AFIP. The manufacturing, construction, financial, tourism and transport industries all lost companies during the same period. Over the past two years, the number of softwarerelated jobs increased by 18 percent, while overall private sector jobs declined by four percent, data from the Productive Development Ministry shows.

Technology companies have benefited from a recent wave of venture capital investment in Latin America. Argentine startups such as Ualá, Tiendanube and Satélite are among those increasing headcount as part of a regional hiring drive. E-commerce giant Mercadolibre Inc. announced plans to create 2,800 new jobs in Argentina this year.

Those developments help explain an unusual trend in Argentina’s recovery from the pandemic: its economy has been creating jobs even as it loses employers. A host of local companies have closed, while international firms from Walmart Inc to Latam Airlines Group SA fled the country as they were crushed by labour regulations, currency controls and inflation approaching 50 percent a year.

The latest data from the Labour Ministry show that total private sector employment in August was close to the prepandemic level of February 2020, just before the government imposed one of the region’s strictest quarantines for several months. But the number of private sector employers has fallen to around 517,000, the lowest since at least 2008.