Government Offers Voluntary Buyouts to About 20,000 Federal Workers

Argentina’s government opened a voluntary retirement plan on Monday for permanent employees of the federal administration, paying most leavers a month’s salary per year of service plus extra months, and barring them from federal work for eight years.

Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger said about 20,000 workers are eligible. Sign-up runs through November, with one extension of up to 30 days allowed, according to Decree 1203 in the official gazette, signed by Milei, Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli and Sturzenegger. Anyone who joins leaves the job, and the budget post is eliminated.

The plan covers permanent staff and workers with open-ended contracts in the centralized administration: ministries and their departments. It excludes the armed and security forces, the intelligence agency, the foreign service, temporary contract workers and separate agencies such as the pension agency ANSES, which ran its own plan that closed on September 30.

Payments depend on age and pension contributions. Older workers who lack enough contributions to retire can take a lump sum or 60% of their pay for up to three years. The others get a month’s pay per year of service plus four or five extra months; for the youngest group the per-year part is capped at 20 months.

Applicants must drop any labor claims against the state and cannot have serious criminal or disciplinary cases pending.

Sturzenegger said on X that the aim is to keep cutting public spending so taxes can fall, and that the eight-year bar is meant to stop a revolving door; anyone who does come back must repay the money. His ministry reports that the national public sector, including state companies and the military and security forces, had 77,515 fewer jobs in August than in December 2023. INDEC, the statistics agency, counts about 72,000 fewer over the same period across the national administration and state companies.

Agencies can refuse a request if the departure would hurt a public service. They have 40 days after sign-up closes to decide, and a request with no answer counts as rejected.