Lines idle until January: at Peugeot outside Buenos Aires, the slowdown becomes tangible

What happened

As Clarín reported on Monday, the Peugeot plant in El Palomar will produce for only about two of the 18 weeks until 18 January; for the rest of the time workers will be suspended or on early holiday. The pickup line at the Córdoba plant will also pause from early December. The reason is a sales slump: just over 15,000 Peugeot 208s were registered in the first nine months, compared with almost 25,000 a year earlier. According to Clarín, the models are particularly squeezed by Chinese hybrid and electric cars imported tariff-free.

Stellantis stresses that it is adjusting production to demand without laying off a single worker; its country head had earlier insisted both plants would keep operating. In May, Peugeot had already cut a shift at El Palomar, and around 600 employees accepted a voluntary redundancy offer.

Meanwhile the government is looking for a response to the slowdown. According to La Nación, President Javier Milei admitted for the first time that indicators are not developing as well as expected and pointed to an external shock. Country risk rose to 710 points this week. Incentives for small and medium-sized firms, a slower phase-out of subsidies and credit lines are being discussed in the cabinet, but the government does not want to change course.

The mood on the ground

Even within the governing camp, La Nación reports, officials sense growing discontent on the street, driven by unemployment and weak purchasing power. That Milei dismissed the widespread complaint about money running out before month-end as a cheap slogan is seen even by government insiders as lacking empathy.

An opinion piece in La Nación describes how families bridge the last days of the month: with debt, odd jobs and credit-card instalments; some take their children out of private school or move house, and the poorest eat at community kitchens. Two polls reported by Argentine outlets on Monday back up this picture: in the CELAG survey, 89.6 percent said they cannot make it to month-end or only with great difficulty; in the Haime y Asociados poll, 53 percent said they had stopped buying necessities.

The government counters that it has brought down inflation and poverty and restored order on the streets, achievements it intends to highlight more. Critics such as the La Nación columnist reply that mass consumption shows no recovery, formal employment is falling and informality is growing.

Voices from the media