El Proceso de precarización en el mercado de trabajo del Gran La Plata. Principales características y tendencias actuales (2003-2004)

The aim of this paper is to identify of the main features and trends of precarious work in Great La Plata, considering the current national economic dynamics. Taking as benchmark the "full" employment, different degress of precariousness can be found according to the lack of features that characterize said fullness. Thus, there would be a gradation of situations, from a maximum reference in the "full" employment to a minimum one in the absolute unemployment. The analysis is based on the information provide by a survey called Encuesta Permanente de Hogares (EPH), which comprises the time between the second semester in 2003 and the first one in 2004, since after their restructuring EPH only provides information on that period so far. The results show that in the region, precarious jobs amount to 39.3 of the economically active population in the first semester in 2004. If the unemployed are included, over 50 of the population undergo employment problems and there exists pressure of the demanding underemployed sector on the labor market. In the public sector, 16.4 of the people employed are precarized, and the percentage rises to 34 if the beneficiaries of unemployment programs are included. In the private sector, precarious employment reaches 54. Regarding the evolution of per capita income, the levels reached are below those earned before the 2002 devaluation, even within the groups of employed people whose purchasing power improved between 2003 and 2004. The main contributions of this paper lie in the identification, quantification and characterization of precarious employment in the region in the post-devaluation period through the analysis of the EPH Data Base.