Productividad y ocupación en la producción de azúcar en Tucumán

Abstract

Employment in sugar production in Tucumán has decreased greatly in the last decade. Since sugar is the main economic activity in the region, that has made for a high unemployment rate and a strong outflow of labor. This process has not been steady but subjected to wide fluctuations due to price and supply unstability. The paper analyzes market and production trends and concludes that the employment fall is a consequence of a stagnated demand combined to rapid increasing sugar yields out of sugarcane. Unstability, on the other hand, is the consequences of high costs, the large proportion of small owners and the working of a mechanism of the cob-web type. The article finally works out a five years projection of employment according to different alternative hypothesis.