Argentina: Milei Terminates the Contracts of 7,000 State Workers Hired in 2023

December 26, 2023.

President Javier Milei is wasting no time in attacking State Workers including firing 7,000 who were hired this year. In addition, contracts signed before January 1, 2023 may only be renewed for up to 90 days. During this period the Government will carry out an “exhaustive survey” of their situation in order to evaluate their renewal.

Milei decreed the non-renewal of State workers’ contracts hired from January 1, 2023, including the national administration and decentralized agencies such as AFIP, PAMI and ANSES. In addition, an “exhaustive survey” of the personnel hired before that date was ordered.

It is estimated that this measure will affect about 7 thousand state workers. The termination of the contracts, which had already been anticipated by the President, takes place within the framework of a tough fiscal adjustment program and, according to Decree 84/2023, published today in the Official Gazette, “is in line with those objectives and for the purpose of achieving a better functioning of the Public Administration”.

Who is affected by the cuts

The Decree establishes that “the hiring of personnel for the provision of services carried out under Article 9° of the Framework Law for the Regulation of National Public Employment, Decree No. 1109 of December 28, 2017 and any other hiring modality that concludes as of December 31, 2023, and initiated as of January 1, 2023 in the agencies included in subparagraphs a) and c) of Article 8° of Law No. 24,156, shall not be renewed”.

These subsections of the aforementioned article refer to employees of:

  • National Administration, made up by the Central Administration and Decentralized Agencies, including in the latter the Social Security Institutions.
  • State Enterprises and Corporations, which also include Corporations with Majority State Participation, Mixed Economy Corporations and all other business organizations where the National State has a majority participation in the capital or in the formation of corporate decisions.
  • Public Entities expressly excluded from the National Administration, which covers any non-corporate state organization, with financial autarchy, legal personality and its own assets, where the National State has majority control of the equity or of the formation of decisions, including those non-State public entities where the National State has control of the decisions.

The Decree argues that this type of contracting is regulated by Article 9 of the Framework Law, which establishes the regime for contracting human persons for the provision of autonomous professional services that are necessary for the development of special tasks, studies, projects or programs. According to the Government, this law provides for a maximum duration of 12 months and, therefore, “they are about to expire”, so it decided not to renew them.

What are the exceptions to these mass cancellations?

Article 2 of the Decree indicates some exceptions to hiring that will not be terminated, and they are:

  • Those derived from quotas regulated by law or other types of special protections.
  • Personnel who have been working prior to January 1, 2023 and have changed their hiring modality.
  • Personnel that the head of each jurisdiction assesses that they are indispensable for the operation of the jurisdiction, in a restrictive and well-founded manner, and that their continuity is necessary for reasons that cannot be postponed for operational reasons.

What happens to those who were hired before 2023?

Article 3 of the document enacted today in the Official Gazette establishes that those contracts signed prior to January 1, 2023 may not be renewed for a period exceeding 90 calendar days.

In turn, in Article 4, the authorities of each jurisdiction are ordered to “conduct an exhaustive survey of the contracted personnel during that term in order to evaluate the renewal” of their employment relationship.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano –  Buenos Aires