Argentine President Javier Milei is following through on his chainsaw-style approach to reducing the bloated federal government, suggesting during a speech this week that tens of thousands of public sector employment contracts that are set to expire at the end of the month will not be renewed.
“We have dismissed 50,000 public employees. Not only that — [employment] contracts were terminated, notice that now more contracts are lapsing and 70,000 contracts are going to lapse," he said during a speech in Buenos Aires.
Beyond the job cuts, Milei boasted Tuesday at an event that he’s frozen public works, cut off some funding to provincial governments and terminated more than 200,000 social welfare plans, which he labeled as corrupt. It’s all part of his strategy to reach a fiscal balance at any cost this year.
“There’s a lot of blender,” Milei said in an hour long speech at the IEFA Latam Forum in Buenos Aires, referring to the erosion of wages and pensions by 276% annual inflation. “There’s a lot more chainsaw.” (Bloomberg)
Milei’s efforts to reduce the number of public sector workers is expected to face opposition from labor unions, some of which have already promised a national strike.
Other key points from Milei’s speech Tuesday:
- Milei said peso futures contracts are aligned with the central bank’s 2% monthly crawling peg scheme, labeling calls to sharply devalue the currency again “ridiculous”
- Argentina central bank on the path to achieving net neutral reserves after starting with debt liabilities that surpassed cash on hand by $11.5 billion in December
- Milei says he’ll double down on his attempts to reform the Argentine economy after 2025 congressional elections, with more than 3,000 reforms in the pipeline
- He described the Senate rejecting his emergency decree as “marvelous” because “it left all the dirty fingers” of exposed of politicians he calls “delinquents”
- Milei expects V-shaped economic recovery (Bloomberg)
“Despite the adjustments, people have hope and see that there is light at the end of the road,” Milei said.
🚨BREAKING NEWS: Libertarian President of Argentina Javier Milei announces chainsaw strategy. He fired 50,000 government workers, ended discretionary cash payments to provinces and is ending 70,000 government contracts. BASED. 🇦🇷
— Joseph Trimmer (@JosephTrimmer_) March 27, 2024
In a stunning display of his commitment to fiscal… pic.twitter.com/kBDXX1fBun
Javier Milei is turning out to be everything great he promised to be https://t.co/FEoGeNzOUJ
— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) March 27, 2024
