MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine exodus since 2001 has reached 800.000 or 2.1% of total population

Between 2002 and 2007 remittances from overseas Argentines increased nine fold from 100 million to 920 million USD.

Over 800.000 Argentines left the country following the 2001 economic debacle, according to the latest report from the International Organization for Migration, which in the last decade represents 2.1% of total population.

“It is undoubtedly the largest migration from Argentina in the last 100 years”, said Susana Novick, a demographics expert from the country’s Conicet (Research Centre) and the Gino Germani institute.

Ms Novick is the author of the book, “North-South, studies on recent Argentine emigration”, published by the University of Buenos Aires.

Reference data shows that at the beginning of the XXth century an estimated 4.2 million immigrants from Italy, Spain, France and other European countries reached Argentina, but following a few years half of them returned. This means 2.2 million effectively remained in Argentina, which means that the exodus of the beginning of this century is equivalent to almost a third of that early last century massive influx.

However the latest data does not include the Argentines that have been forced to return because of the latest global economic crisis which has hit particularly hard Italy, Spain and the United States.

The report also points out that the “number of Argentines who left is relevant both in number and quality. They were mainly young, professional and in productive and reproductive age. This has a significant social and economic impact”, underlines Novick.

Another sign of the massive emigration are the remittances during the last ten years: between 2001 and 2007 the value increased nine fold from 100 million US dollars in 2001 to 920 million in 2007, according to the report. This represents 0.4% of Argentina’s current GDP.

The main countries of origin of the Argentine remittances are Spain, 30.4%; US, 22.3%; Chile, 6%; Paraguay, 5.9%; Israel, 5.4%; Bolivia, 3.5%; Brazil, 2.5%; Uruguay, 2.3% and Canada 2.1%.

The local impact of this qualified emigration has been suffered by the Argentine private sector which has been forced to capacitate personnel and contract staff that can be reconverted.

“Some foreign companies and Argentine, which operate globally, have been rotating staff to be able to satisfy demand. This however has not been enough to solve the highly qualified human resources scarcities which are undergoing sectors of the Argentine economy”, adds the document.

“Unsatisfied job demand which has been experienced lately in several productive areas of the economy is pressing on the government and private sectors to articulate efforts and mechanisms to generate professional quality and labour re-qualification”.

Of the 806.369 Argentines overseas, 229.009 figure in Spain; 144.023 in the US; Paraguay, 61.649; Chile, 59.637; Israel, 43.718 and Italy, 11.576.