Labor force underutilization before and after the covid-19 scenario in Argentina

Abstract

This article is interested in the consequences of the macroeconomic dynamics of the 2014-2021 period on the reproduction of the systemic asymmetries that characterize the Argentine urban labor market. To what extent did the cycle of stagnation and crisis of the 2014-2019 period, aggravated by the pandemic, lead to an accentuation of such imbalances? We address here the relationship between cycles of low economic growth, crisis and productive absorption of the labor force The article evidences that the prolonged cycle of stagnation and crisis aggravated by the pandemic resulted in an expansion of different forms of surplus labor force and transversal impoverishment in the social structure of labor. In this sense, it is concluded that the cycle of crisis aggravated by the pandemic has generated adverse conditions in terms of inequality and new socio-economic marginalization, for whose reversal the economic recovery of the year 2021 has not been sufficient.