The RIGI adds investments but is still not enough to replace the jobs that were lost in the Milei era

Las 22 initiatives that were formally published in the Official Gazette and were recorded in the official statistics uploaded by the Ministry of Economy provide for the creation of 95,950 jobs.

At the same time, the other 22 under evaluation commit a much higher investment, of almost US$ 152,000 million, and the generation of another 131,645 jobs, both direct and indirect.

If those projects pending official approval, which are larger in size – such as liquefied gas and the development of unconventional oil in Vaca Muerta by YPF, which between them total more than US$ 75,000 million and concentrate half of the disbursements under analysis – are counted, The employment promised by the RIGI is enough to replace two thirds of the 337,365 jobs registered in a dependency relationship that were lost between November 2023 and May 2026.

Thus, the average rate of decline in formal salaried employment in these two and a half years was about 11,250 positions per month. The jobs promised in the approved projects are equivalent to approximately 8.5 months of lost registered and dependent work.

Economists from Misión Productiva, such as Martín Alfie, Daniel Schteingart, Paloma Varona and Esteban Kiper -among others-, with a “developmentalist” vision, calculated that the “permanent” jobs that will remain after the construction of the projects only represent 14% of the total announced or 4% of the formal salaried employment lost.

The discussion gained weight this year, as more and more energy and mining initiatives – capital-intensive sectors – take over the public agenda, while industry, construction and commerce, large demanders of labor, remain in crisis and are the sectors hardest hit by the economic model of La Libertad Avanza.

In May, in a presentation at the Latam Economic Forum, the businessman Marcelo Mindlinowner of Pampa Energía – producer of oil, gas, electricity and later fertilizers -, the gas transporter Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS) and the cement company Loma Negra, said that “It is really very difficult to think that Argentina is not going to generate employment and it will not grow significantly in the coming years.”

And this month, during the celebration of the 100 years of Loma Negra, Mindlin reaffirmed: “With 150,000 million dollars of investments projected under the RIGI, between approved projects and those under evaluation, Argentina is going to have a huge demand for jobs and suppliers“.

Meanwhile, Carlos Ormachea, director of Techint and president of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production Chamber (CEPH) – which brings together the country’s main oil companies – assured Congress that “the RIGI is an investment primer; without it, some would not have been executed and others would have been left behind.”

In the Senate, Ormachea predicted that the regime will generate about 500,000 jobs in the next four years, above what appears on the official sites.

More than half a million jobs were created during @JMilei’s presidency. Nothing, that. https://t.co/UTrM1WontR pic.twitter.com/zFxVxhwQGu

— Fede Fallenegger (@federutsche) August 28, 2026

This Friday, the Minister of Deregulation and Productive Transformation, Federico Sturzeneggercelebrated on the social network X (ex Twitter) that “More than half a million jobs were created during Milei’s presidency“, starting the series in the first quarter of 2023, when Alberto Fernández was still governing.

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec), until the end of the first quarter of 2026, some 510,000 jobs were created in those three years, almost all of them non-salaried, which tend to be of lower productivity, Schteingart described.