Two surveys of business leaders in Argentina indicate that diminished consumer spending and uncertainty regarding the timeline for economic recovery are emerging as significant concerns for the sector. One of the reports is the Business Climate Index, a survey that assesses the perceptions of business leaders regarding the business environment, the performance of their companies, and the economic outlook for Argentina. A key finding is that nearly 42% believe that the level of demand is the primary factor influencing business growth. The report is produced by the Business Leaders Group, an organization that unites presidents, CEOs, and senior executives from the nation’s foremost national and international companies. The Business Trends Survey, a quarterly analysis conducted by the statistics institute INDEC among supermarkets and wholesale grocery stores, arrived at a comparable conclusion. Just over 61% of respondents indicated that low demand is the primary constraint on their capacity to expand business activity, reflecting an increase of more than 3% from the previous survey released in April.
Data on consumer spending in Argentina indicate that the downturn that commenced in early 2025, subsequent to the conclusion of the credit boom and the emergence of increasing delinquency rates, has not yet shown signs of recovery. The Argentine Chamber of Medium-Sized Enterprises released its retail sales index this week, serving as a crucial metric for assessing the vitality of small and medium-sized enterprises. Sales in July experienced a decline of nearly 4% on a year-over-year basis and a decrease of over 2% relative to June. The decline for the first seven months of the year is recorded at 2.7%. The Argentine Chamber of Commerce’s Consumption Indicator exhibited a negative trajectory: it recorded a 1% year-over-year decrease in June, a 1.6% reduction relative to May, and a 0.9% decline on a year-to-date basis in 2026. Not all business owners, however, concur that consumption is experiencing a downturn.
The most prominent dissenter is Marcos Galperín, founder of Mercado Libre and a staunch supporter of the libertarian government, who questioned the representativeness of the CAME index. “Someone should compare the volume of everything measured by CAME versus the volume transacted on Mercado Libre Argentina, which grew 38% in constant currency last quarter,” he tweeted. Private consultancy Scentia estimated that online purchases increased by 34.8% during the first half of 2026. However, the same report indicated that this growth was insufficient to counterbalance the overall decline in consumption, which fell by 2.9% year-to-date. The discourse surrounding diminished consumption levels is intricately connected to escalating unemployment rates and the proliferation of informal employment opportunities. In the first quarter of 2024, unemployment stood at 7.7%, reflecting an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
The latest official figures from INDEC indicated that unemployment has risen to 7.8% in the first quarter of 2026. Simultaneously, informal employment has persisted in its upward trajectory, attaining 44.2% of the total workforce in the first quarter of 2024 — the peak level since the fourth quarter of 2023, when the existing methodology was implemented, as reported. Preliminary data for May indicate a comparable trend. According to the latest Labour Indicators Survey from the human capital ministry, registered private-sector employment in Argentina’s major cities experienced a decline of 0.1% on a month-over-month basis and 1.1% on a year-over-year basis. Recent findings from the public opinion research firm AtlasIntel indicate that unemployment is perceived as Argentina’s second-most pressing issue, cited by 46.5% of respondents, following closely behind corruption, which stands at 47.7%.
