Buenos Aires Salaries

[zachsawyer]

Hello everyone. I am doing some research on a business venture in Buenos Aires and I am having some difficulty finding accurate, up-to-date salary information online. Can someone give me what, in their opinion, would be an average monthly salary for an office worker? I would be looking for employees that are fluent in English (which most likely makes them University graduates) and proficient in using computers, but otherwise with no specific skills. Gross salaries would be most useful as I need to get an idea of what my total costs would be. I appreciate any responses posted.

 

[Davidglen77]

I would say the average "office worker" in an administrative type position would earn about $1,500 to $2,000 pesos per month in hand. If you have them working in "blanco" in other words on the books, which of course you should if you don't want to end up paying very heavy fines and lawsuits down the road, it will cost you about $600 pesos per month additional per employee. The only discounts from the employees salary are 3% for health coverage (obra social) and 11% for retirement (jubilación) all other payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employer.

 

[marksoc]

$ 1800 - $ 2300 I would say (I will personally beat to a pulp somebody paying $ 1500 wages to a poor guy/girl).

 

[Davidglen77]

Marksoc, I totally agree with you on that. $1,500 pesos is a lousy salary. It works out to about $9.25 pesos per hour. However, when I was interviewing people last time around that is what a lot of them were earning at their current jobs (which they were looking to leave). It would be great if there are companies willing to pay more.

 

[Vikingo]

ok... he is looking for people bilingual in english and besides he wants them graduated from college..

how can you say that 1,500 pesos would be fair??? Nobody with that characterictis will accept a job like that, and if someone does, he will be constantly looking for other jobs. I´m not graduated working for a US corp. and my salary almost doubles that.

Apart from that, you were wrong, the discounts that an employee has from the gross salary (bruto) is as follows:
11% for retirement (jubilacion)
3% health care (obra social)
3% law 23,568 (related to retirments and pensions)
Total: 17%

 

[zachsawyer]

Thanks for the information. I want to pay my employees a good salary so they are happy and so they stick around and grow with my company. So, it looks like I can expect around 2000 pesos plus another 600 pesos for employer contributions? Would it be easy to find these types of employees in Buenos Aires?

 

[zachsawyer]

I just noticed Vikingo's message regarding English-speaking employees. Yes, I would need my employees to speak English with a fair degree of fluency. Does this change the estimates mentioned above?

 

[cabrera]

2000 pesos is hardly a great wage for someone who is multilingual and is living in a expensive city like Buenos Aires . We are talking about less than 550 US dollars a month when a normal rental is around 1500 pesos minimum . They can live on 500 pesos a month for food and all other expenses?

 

[mini]

I just noticed Vikingo's message regarding English-speaking employees. Yes, I would need my employees to speak English with a fair degree of fluency. Does this change the estimates mentioned above?

Yes. You should pay your employee around AR$4000 per month. Let's think about it this way: considering to get a rentista visa you need US$750 per month (cash in hand) to live. You shouldn't pay less than that, right? With AR$4000 that will be about what they get at the end of the month.

 

[Attorney in BA]

Here's a company that sells this information. The example they have online has some salaries (manager & receptionist), and can help you get an idea. They say that in May 2009 a receptionist was making at least AR$1400 and a manager at least AR$4000. I would guess that the person you're looking for would be closer to AR$4000, as Mini said.

http://www.jobomas.com/?Contenido=EncuestaRemuneracion

http://ar.jobomas.com/Encuesta/Jobomas.com - Encuesta de Remuneraciones Junio 2009 - Ejemplo.pdf

BTW, if you need any information on legal aspects of investing in Argentina, labor or taxes let me know and I'll send you information.