Resumen

DONZA, Eduardo. The impact of lockdown on the labour force of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. Trab. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.22, n.36, pp.29-53. ISSN 1514-6871.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effects produced by social isolation policies, within the COVID-19 context, on the labour situation and the occupational structure in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA, in Spanish).

It addresses the following questions: To what extent the economic crisis triggered by health policies has led to a loss of jobs? How unequal have these effects been in socio-occupational terms? In what way have they had an impact on workers’ wages and salaries? What percentage of the workforce has been granted special permits to go to work or has shifted to teleworking? What impact has this had on the subjective wellbeing of the employed?

Empirical results show that the lockdown had negative consequences in the urban labor market, which was already characterized by social exclusion, precariousness and inequality. During the lockdown, 8.2% of the workers lost their job or did not work, 19.8% did not have labor income and only 26,8% worked remotely. Among the workers that lost their income, 35.3% experienced psychological pain, 28.3% revealed negative coping, 17.1% declared feeling not happy and 23% experienced external locus of control.This study forms part of a broader research aimed at accounting for the impact of health policies on the wellbeing of AMBA’s population. Between May 7 and 12, 2020 -after a 55-day lockdown- a panel survey (EDSA COVID-19) was conducted among 500 households selected from a survey undertaken by EDSA-Agenda para la Equidad [EDSA-Agenda for Equity] in July-October 2019. The cases selected make up a stratified random sample of the 1,776 cases surveyed in 2019.

Palabras clave : COVID-19; Employment crisis; Deterioration of salaries; Subjective wellbeing; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.