Mobile voluntary retrenchment in Chaco province public administration, Argentina, 2018-2019

Abstract

This paper presents a first glance over the Mobile Voluntary Retrenchment system (Provincial law N° 2871-H) between august of 2018 and November of 2019, intended for the permanent staff of public administration of the Chaco province in Argentina, which was in accordance with the Voluntary Retrenchment of the National State (Presidential Decree N° 263/18) but with more beneficial features for the workers in the provincial jurisdiction. Voluntary Retrenchment can be defined as a way of dissociating the worker from remuneration and social security offered by the state before the legal period to access retirement benefits, which follows, generally, a reduction of the permanent staff policies and state budget adjustments. The General Secretary of the Governorate -law enforcement authority- must encourage 7000 agents with low professional scores (before being employed as permanent staff, they were linked to the State with precarious contracting modalities) to admit the benefit. This work analyses the quantitative dimensions from the final results of the convening obtained from official sources and it presents the hypothesis concerning the influencing factors in the noncompliance of the planned objectives (just 10% of the persons without professional qualification were able to access it) and the strong disengagements of professionals. The analysis of the Voluntary Retrenchment system alerts on the importance of developing and managing adequate staff policies, especially aimed at those with professional degrees.