This is reflected in the index prepared by the UMET, which showed a rise of 1.2% compared to the last month. The products and services that impacted the most
By iProfessional
10/04/2023 – 16,45hs
According to the index prepared by the Institute of Workers’ Statistics (IET) of the Metropolitan University for Education and Work (UMET) and the Center for Concertation and Development (CCD), worker inflation increased by 7.5% in the month of March (1.2% more than in February) and exceeded 20% so far in 2023.
The price increase, according to the survey, was 6.3% in February. However, the rise in prices in the third month of the year deepened due to Communications (+12%); Goods and Services (+9.7%), pushed by personal hygiene products (such as toilet paper, toothbrushes, diapers, and toilet soap) and cigarettes; and Food and beverages (+8.3%).
Workers’ inflation exceeded 20% in the first quarter
“All the chapters of the basket rose above 4% per month, which denotes generalized inflation in most items”, explained the IET specialists. And they added that “in this way, inflation reached 20.6% in the first quarter of the year, a figure that if annualized for the rest of the year becomes 112%. Meanwhile, interannual inflation (that is, against the same month of the previous year) reached 104.6% and showed the fourteenth consecutive acceleration”.
It is worth noting that the increase exhibited by the IET was higher than the Survey of Market Expectations (REM) which showed 7% for March and inflation in the City of Buenos Aires (CABA), which climbed to 7.1%, accumulating a rise of 21.8% in the first quarter of the year.
The general director of the CCD and ex-minister of Education of the Nation, Nicolás Trotta stated that “inflation causes employment growth to exist with poverty growth, which has not been seen since the 90s of the last century.” And he assured: “We need the real income of families to grow and find a price anchor that must emerge from a consensus”.
For his part, the general coordinator of the IET, Fabian Amico, explained that “an important element that is increasingly affecting inflation is exchange rate policy”, explaining that “we are in a context in which the Government is losing reserves systematically, therefore, it is forced to increase the rate of devaluation of the official dollar.”
According to the report, year-on-year inflation went from over 40% (in 2014) to almost 105% (in 2023).
The Central Bank’s inflation survey worsened: it forecasts 110% for all of 2023
While the official inflation for March will be known in the coming days, the analysts who put their forecasts in the Central Bank’s Survey of Market Expectations (REM) already estimated that the price index (CPI) for last month rose compared to the month former. AND they expect inflation for the whole year of 110% (10.2 points above the forecast of the previous survey).
By February 2023, the median of the estimates of those who participated in the previous REM survey suggested an inflation of 6.1% per month, while the data observed in that month turned out to be 6.6% (0.5 percentage points higher than forecast). In turn, the REM participants reviewed the forecasts for all periods, placing inflation at 90.0% for 2024, that is, 8.3 points higher than the previous survey and at 54.6% year-on-year (+0.9 pp) for the year 2025.
Regarding the Core CPI, the variable that does not include regulated or seasonal prices, analysts projected a monthly variation of 6.8% for March (0.8 points above the forecast of the previous survey), higher than the forecast of those who better they projected this variable for the short term (6.5% monthly).
