Argentine industrial production fell again in June and closed the first half of the year with a scenario of low productive activity. From the Unión Industrial de Santa Fe they assure that the province replicates that scenario, warn about lower demand, the loss of purchasing power and the impact on employment, and demand: “The State has to put us on the agenda.”
Argentina's industry fell again in June, according to the Unión Industrial Argentina (UIA) report, which estimated a year-on-year decline of 1.8% and a seasonally adjusted monthly change of -0.2%. The entity described a scenario of weak activity, with some specific improvements that are not enough to change the overall picture.
In Santa Fe, the industrialists' diagnosis goes in the same direction. Viviana Taborda, president of the Unión Industrial de Santa Fe, said that the province “replicates exactly the same” as what national reports show and maintained that the situation is affecting the different manufacturing sectors.
“ The truth is that the outlook, as you say, is not encouraging. In Santa Fe, exactly the same thing is being replicated as what the reports the Unión Industrial Argentina is giving,” she stated.
According to her description, there are activities going through a somewhat better situation, but others continue “quite more battered,” among them the textile industry, foundry and capital goods, sectors that, she noted, still have not managed to recover.
The diagnosis partially coincides with the national survey: the UIA identified in June new declines in sectors such as metalworking, steel and the automotive industry, while some segments recorded specific improvements. Metalworking, for example, fell 5.7% year-on-year, while the automotive sector retreated 18.3% compared to June 2025.
The sectors that still show some activity
Taborda said that within the metallurgical industry there is a sector that shows a somewhat more favorable behavior: bodies and trailers.
“ It is the one that is perhaps showing a little positive, but they are not numbers that can generate a positive balance for industry,” she explained.
For the head of the Unión Industrial de Santa Fe, the underlying problem remains the strong decline in activity. “ There is a strong recession and we still are not able to stay afloat and stabilize ourselves in order to think and project for the future,” she said.
At the national level, the UIA also noted that the improvements observed in some areas —including beverages, beef slaughter, electricity consumption by large industrial users and machinery registrations— were not enough to change the overall scenario of low productive activity.
The concern about employment
One of the points that most worries Santa Fe industrialists is the impact of lower activity on employment.
“ It is happening. The truth is that we always say that what we have to try to do is maintain employment because we understand that industry provides genuine, quality employment and, in these cases, the truth is that these losses are being seen,” Taborda said.
The industrial leader warned that the impact could deepen over time and linked the situation to the lack of internal demand, the fall in consumption and the loss of purchasing power.
“ It not only affects industry but also society, because this goes to the detriment of what is to come,” she said, and added that lower demand generates a feedback loop that ends up affecting the entire productive circuit.
The national scenario also shows signs of accumulated deterioration: during the first five months of 2026, industrial activity was 3.1% below the same period of 2025 and 10% below 2022, according to the UIA.
Optimism, but with demands on the State
Despite the scenario, Taborda said that industrialists maintain a long-term view.
“ I think the industrialist is always an optimist,” she said, and highlighted that Argentine industrial SMEs have spent decades going through different economic cycles and that many continue to invest and try to learn from crises.
For the president of the Unión Industrial de Santa Fe, the challenge is reinventing industry and putting industrial development back at the center of the agenda.
“ I think we have to work a lot on reinventing ourselves and starting to see industry from a different place, and also the State has to put us on the agenda and think that to move a country forward, industrial development is necessary,” she concluded.
