Employment and unemployment
In 2021, Argentina registered a labor force participation of 71.6 percent for men and around 50 percent for women, within a labor force of over 21 million workers. During the last two decades, the female participation rate had a considerable increase, while their male counterparts decreased significantly. During that same year, almost three-quarters of the total employed population were employees and, in 2019, around 78 percent worked in the services industry. The importance of the tertiary sector in the Argentinian labor market continues to expand, even though the share of GDP generated by services fell considerably due to the COVID-19 pandemic.The restrictions and measures to stop the spread of the virus also heavily impacted unemployment in Argentina, going from 9.84 percent in 2019 to 11.46 percent in 2020. The year after registered an important recovery but remained the second highest figure in the last 15 years. This increase in unemployment exacerbates the concerns of the population about the complicated labor market in two main ways: firstly because more than 40 percent of the unemployed have been unsuccessfully looking for new employment for more than a year and secondly, due to higher unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24, which in 2021 was around 29.89 percent.
