Economy of Argentina

Argentina was long one of the most prosperous nations in Latin America. Its prosperity originated with agriculture in the Pampas, the economic heartland of the country. Argentina is one of the world’s leading cattle- and grain-producing nations. Manufacturing grew substantially in the mid-20th century. Argentina’s economy in that period was based on the production and export of agricultural products and livestock, machinery and manufactured goods, fuels and chemicals, and minerals. Since the 1980s, however, nonindustrial activities such as financial services, tourism, commerce, and telecommunications have grown considerably.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Argentina faced considerable economic difficulties. In the 1990s the government changed the primarily state-controlled economy to one that was mostly privately controlled. Successive global and domestic crises battered the Argentine economy and contributed to its instability. In addition, declining domestic tax revenue from a global economic slowdown created a drag on the economy. In 2002 the economy collapsed as Argentina defaulted on its public debt, froze bank accounts, and devalued the peso by 30 percent. Argentina’s national budget in 2004 had revenues of $28 billion and expenditures of $27.8 billion. Argentina’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 was $262.5 billion.

Labor

In 2007 the total labor force numbered 18.3 million. In 2005 services employed 75 percent of the workforce, while industry employed 24 percent and agriculture, forestry, and fishing employed less than one percent. The movement in the 1990s to privatize many public companies in Argentina changed the structure of Argentina's labor force. In 2000 approximately 1 million people were employed in the public sector (federal, provincial, and municipal levels), compared to 5.1 million in 1991. Employment in the private sector increased from about 8.1 million in 1991 to more than 12 million in 2000.

Economy of Argentina. argentour.com

Most of Argentina’s 1,100 labor unions are affiliated with the Confederación General del Trabajo (General Confederation of Labor), known as the CGT. The government suspended the right to unionize in 1976, but restored it in 1982.

The labor movement included nearly 4 million workers by the late 1990s, with the highest participation rates in the manufacturing sector. By the late 1990s privatization programs had resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a national unemployment rate of 15 percent in 2000. Unemployment in Buenos Aires had risen to more than 25 percent by the end of 2002. Encarta