A STEEP ECONOMIC DROP

Economic activity in May was 5.8 percent down on the same month last year, the INDEC statistics bureau reported on Tuesday, in an ominous sign. This sharp decline was mostly due to the contrast between this year’s drought and last year’s harvest, since agriculture crashed 35.2 percent yet industry also fell off 1.4 percent. Hopes are now fading of breaking a sequence of negative growth in non-electoral even years going back to 2012 (when the economy grew by less than one percent) although the government is still forecasting a faintly positive outcome. The May job figures announced the next day were more bad news although they remained above the employment levels of the same month last year. There were 0.1 percent less jobs compared to last April – 16,900 less overall (the public and private sectors plus the self-employed) and 5,900 less in the private sector. But there were 148,400 more jobs than in the previous May (including 50,200 in the private sector), the product of previous growth.