The INDEC national statistics bureau has confirmed what we all expected: Argentina is in recession.
The bureau announced yesterday that the economy shrank by 3.5 percent during the third trimester of 2018, against the same period in 2017.
It was the second registered contraction in a row after the economy shrank four percent in the second quarter, with respect to the same period a year ago.
Gross domestic product is down by 1.4 percent from January to September compared with 2017, INDEC said.
The hardest hit sectors were business (down 8.9 percent), fishing (down 7.3 percent) and manufacturing (down 6.6 percent). However, finance was up by 5.1 percent.
INDEC also confirmed that the unemployment stood at nine percent in the same period, compared to 9.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018 and 9.1 percent in the first quarter.
The latest figure was a rise, however, on the same period of 2017, when joblessness was 8.3 percent.
Underemployment – part-time work, or the under-use of a worker's skills due to a lack of suitable jobs on the market – reached 11.8 percent.
The IMF predicts that the economy will shrink in total by 2.6 percent this year, with another 1.6 percent anticipated in 2019.
- TIMES/AFP
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