Martina Jaureguy Around 2000 Human Capital Ministry employees who work on childhood and family policies received an email on Friday at 10:30 p.m. informing them their services were no longer needed. Hundreds more who work on housing, environment, tourism and sport policies at other state dependencies were made redundant the same day.
The firings were a presage of President Javier Milei’s “deep chainsaw” agenda of state cuts, which he emphasized in his speech for the opening of congressional sessions on Saturday night.
The layoffs in the Childhood, Adolescence and Family Secretariat, which carries out key welfare programs, were announced without warning. The institution carries out many of the functions performed by what was formerly the Social Development Ministry, which Milei collapsed into the Human Capital Ministry when he took office.
The layoffs went hand in hand with the elimination of dozens of working areas within the Childhood, Adolescence and Family Secretariat. The cuts were confirmed with a decree signed by Minister Sandra Pettovello that was sent to the workers, although it has yet to be published in the Official Gazette.
The Human Capital ministry told the Herald that a statement about the cuts would be published soon. During previous waves of layoffs, authorities have said that it is cutting teams whose tasks were already being performed by others.
“This is a virtual elimination of what we used to know as the Social Development Ministry,” said Ingrid Manfred, representative of the State Workers Association (ATE, by its Spanish initials) at the secretariat.
Half of those fired were on temporary contracts, which were not renewed. The remainder were on the ministry’s permanent staff. Some had more than three decades of experience, according to Manfred.
Permanent staff members cannot be fired outright. Instead, they were placed on a register of public workers eligible for transfer to other areas before being definitively laid off, in line with a provision in Milei’s Ley Bases. They may remain on the register from 6 months to a year, depending on how long they’d worked at the ministry. They continue to be paid during that period.
“These are covert layoffs. It’s a step prior to being fired,” Manfred said. “It’s very hard to be effectively transferred when the government is cutting all areas working on social policy.”
The layoffs were nationwide and hit all areas of the secretariat, according to Manfred. However, they don’t have an exact number because the authorities have not officially informed them.
The cuts have eliminated areas that were dedicated to disaster relief and other emergencies. “This is a catastrophe. Workers are in deep anguish,” Manfred said.
One of the departments closed was the Social Policy Undersecretariat. Formerly led by social leader Emilio Pérsico, this was called the Social Economy Secretariat under the Alberto Fernández government. The cut appears to be another step in the Social Development ministry’s flagship policy of ending social movements’ role as intermediaries in the administration of welfare.
According to an X post by the Buenos Aires city branch of ATE, on Friday night the government also fired around 400 workers from the Economy Ministry’s Territorial Development, Habitat and Housing Secretariat and the National Architecture Directorate; 300 from ACUMAR, a government entity dedicated to cleaning the polluted Riachuelo river; and 150 at the Tourism, Environment and Sports Secretariat.
