Marull's Warning: How Labor Reform is Transforming Employment in Argentina

Economist Fernando Marull pointed out a troubling paradox in the Argentine labor market. In his recent analyses, this consultant noted that “Argentina creates 200,000 jobs per year, independent or informal,” but the market’s solution is not traditional formal employment but platforms like Rappi or Uber. What Marull observes is symptomatic of a deep structural change: while registered employment in the private sector fell by 1.3% and in the public sector by 0.9%, the number of monotributistas (self-employed workers under a simplified tax regime) grew by 4.2% year-over-year. This trend is no coincidence. The recent labor reform in Argentina has institutionalized exactly what Marull describes as the “new reality” of the labor market.

The legal shield for simulated independence

What was previously known as a “concealed dependency relationship” — a situation that could be litigated due to poor registration — now receives explicit legal backing. Two key articles of the new regulation are decisive: Article 2 excludes from the labor scope “contracting of work, services, agency, transportation, or freight,” as well as “independent workers and their collaborators,” and “independent providers of technological platforms.” Even more forcefully, Article 23 states that the presumption of an employment contract will not apply when there are contracts for work or professional services, and corresponding receipts or invoices are issued.

The implication is radical: a signed contract for work or services by a monotributista (self-employed worker under the simplified regime) is enough to eliminate the presumption of an employment relationship that previously prevailed. In courts, what mattered before were concrete facts (working hours, orders from a supervisor, specific duties), but now the written contract becomes legal protection.

The boom of monotributistas in key sectors

Of the 400,000 monotributistas generated in the last two years of the Milei administration, 116,000 were in tourism and 93,000 in industry. The total growth of monotributo was 4.2% in the most recent period, according to SIPA data. In comparison, there are currently over 6.2 million formal salaried workers in the private sector, while nearly 5 million are independent workers: 2.1 million are “pure monotributistas” according to their tax category, and another 2.1 million are independent workers operating under an employment scheme, even though their legal status is that of monotributistas.

This figure, revealed by research from academic Matías Maito of the University of San Martín, exposes an uncomfortable reality: in many SMEs and microenterprises, workers themselves do not even know their true employment status. Companies provide ARCA fiscal credentials and directly manage payments to the monotributo, re-categorizations, and tax compliance.

The official bet on deregulation

The government actively supports this transformation. Federico Sturzenegger, Minister of Deregulation, commented favorably on Marull’s analysis, noting that “the labor market is taking new forms.” This liberal perspective interprets the phenomenon as a cost reduction for companies and an incentive to hire more workers. However, Marull’s analysis suggests a different interpretation: these jobs are more informal, less protected, and potentially less productive than traditional dependent employment.

The fiscal and pension puzzle

An uncomfortable question then arises: what incentives will exist for a company to hire someone as an employee? Doing so involves paying for vacations, bonuses, higher contributions to the state, and severance pay. In contrast, hiring a monotributista means evading these obligations and, in some cases, even avoiding income tax.

At the fiscal level, the consequences are concerning. Argentina’s pension system, already in crisis, theoretically requires three workers contributing to finance one retiree. Currently, that ratio is 1.7 active workers per retiree, a critically low number. In the specific case of monotributistas, the gap is even more dramatic: it is estimated that 19 monotributistas are needed to finance a minimum pension, according to calculations by UBA public finance professor Julián Folgar.

What the labor reform legalizes is essentially a transfer of risks from employers to workers and to the state’s pension system. Marull, with his warning about the nature of these jobs, identifies the real tension: between a deregulation that reduces business costs and a structural contraction of social financing that will sustain the country in the future.