Economic Analyst in Libertad y Progreso.
ADN EMPRESARIO – Once again the city of Mar del Plata, has the highest unemployment rate in the country. In the second quarter of the year, unemployment was 26%, above the national unemployment rate.
This is not new. Of the last 14 quarters, only two quarters unemployment in the coastal city was lower than national unemployment (first and second quarters of 2018), and on two occasions it was the same (first quarter of 2019 and the first of 2020).
In the second quarter of this year, the economy of our country sank 19.1% compared to the same quarter of last year. This slump in activity made many companies have to reduce part of the staff or directly close their blinds. The sector most affected naturally was Hotels and restaurants with a fall of 73.4% year-on-year, followed by Other community, social and personal services activities (-67.7% yoy) and Construction (-52.1% yoy) . Other sectors such as Commerce fell 16.9% yoy and Manufacturing Industry fell 20.8% yoy. There is no item that is saved.
This caused unemployment at the national level to be 13.1% in the second quarter of the year, above the 10.4% of the previous quarter and 10.6% of the same quarter of last year.
In particular, Mar del Plata suffers the coronavirus crisis like any city, but it has singularities to take into account. Beyond the fact that he could fully enjoy the summer of 2020, the coronavirus endangers the summer of 2021. In case it is not possible to spend the summer on the coast like any year, there will be exorbitant losses for businesses that depend on tourists that year after year they visit the beaches of Mar del Plata. That is, less employment and less development for the city. Moreover, given the exchange rate situation, it is expected that in normal situations tourism will explode throughout the country. The problem is that the vast majority of businesses in Mar del Plata depend on tourism to survive.
In this way, unemployment in Mar del Plata can worsen and diverge even more with respect to the rest of the cities and the country in general. It is very dangerous for such a large city to depend almost exclusively on tourism to generate genuine work for its inhabitants. The municipality has to find a way to generate incentives for the private sector to grow and create jobs independent of tourism. Otherwise, the only way to work that young people from Mar del Plata are going to be emigrating to larger cities such as the Federal Capital.
