Local Salary - bad idea?

[SaraSara]

Argentina graduates many more physicians than it needs, and their pay is pitiful. Many young doctors are reduced to doing physical exams for gyms and clubs at fifteen pesos apiece.

 

[BSS]

To coolkid,

coming down here to work and then going back to the United States for graduate school is not going to fly money wise. However, the work and life experience may be more valueable. If you are depending on your Argentine earnings to finance your future graduate school, don't do it.

Furthermore, I have to agree with KatharineAnn on the salaries. Who makes that kind of money?! I'm a manager and I don't make even close to that. Maybe I'm missing out!

 

[Ashley]

I agree with a lot of people posting, 14,000 pesos is one heck of a high estimate for middle-management.
My husband works in IT and most of the middle-managers (even those who are also IT engineers or talented programmers) at his international firm earn anything from about 4,000 to 8,000 take home pay + health insurance...which, from my experience (and compared to what I'm earning as a communications professional), is pretty darn good. I'd say if you were working for a call-centre type place where wages are notoriously low, I'd expect the lower end of that scale.
The real problems with earning in pesos here are inflation - which in the current climate generally means you get slightly poorer each month and your likely lack of an apartment guarantee as a foreigner which means that you can't rent a place on the same terms as locals and will therefore probably end up paying much more.
Having said that though, if you were prepared to just rent a room from someone or get a flat share and were happy to accept that you wouldn't be able to save, you could live here ok on a lower wage.

 

[syngirl]

Chiming in with those that think these salary estimates are really high! If 14,000 is average for middle management, please tell me where since my Middle Mgmt Engineer husband is sick of earning less than $8000 a month at his internationally owned firm and would love to leave his job if he can practically double his salary in doing so.

 

[SaraSara]

The salaries I quoted were from "Fortuna" magazine: top salaries for mid-level professionals.

Those are gross figures; the take-home pay for an unmarried individual would be 35-40%% less, after deducting taxes, retirement, etc. So a $8,000 take-home salary would come to a little over $11,000. Fortuna quoted about $12,000 tops for an engineer.

I ran Fortuna's figures by an accountant friend, who said they were about right. Incidentally, his own son is a forty-ish mid-level engineer with a foreign company, and that's his salary range.

Hope this clarifies my first post - sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

 

[porteña]

I am a repat Argie and I agree with Sara's figures.
I know of a few Argie friends who have those types of income. There is a wide range, though... One should look at it case by case...
Person #1, 30-year-old, economics college degree, earning $10,000/month at the national version of the IRS. He is a manager, but not a mid-level manager...
Person #2, 40-year-old secretary to the CEO, college degree, earning $8,000/month at a French company
Person #3, 50-year-old, engineer working independently as a consultant, earning +20,000/month
These are all Argentinians...
I then have a VERY LONG list of Argie friends who earn anywhere between $2,000 and 5,000/month... but, indeed, there are salaries around $11-14,000 for some mid-level managers at some places and, definitely, much higher salaries too...

 

[syngirl]

The salaries I quoted were from "Fortuna" magazine: top salaries for mid-level professionals.

Those are gross figures; the take-home pay for an unmarried individual would be 35-40%% less, after deducting taxes, retirement, etc. So a $8,000 take-home salary would come to a little over $11,000. Fortuna quoted about $12,000 tops for an engineer.

I ran Fortuna's figures by an accountant friend, who said they were about right. Incidentally, his own son is a forty-ish mid-level engineer with a foreign company, and that's his salary range.

Hope this clarifies my first post - sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

Well, my husband's gross salary is still less than 8,000.

However your post does underlines the fact that in Argentina pay has little to do with your responsibility in a company, it has to do with your AGE.

It's ridiculous here. My husband is 32, he's a mid-level manager but they won't increase his salary because it would be shameful if he were earning more than people older than him. Also they have arranged the whole matrix of the company to make sure that he is not managing anyone older than him (even though he has more degrees and technical knowledge than a lot of the sales guys under him). It's absolute BS.

If you want to get ahead in a career, Argentina is NOT the place to do it. Argentina you can make money if you bide your time and wait until you are in your 40s and then you'll get a bit of a pay off. However if you're in your 30s and you want to be in management, you're better emigrating to a country like Canada or the States and then returning with foreign experience in your 40s and slide into a top-level position. Otherwise you can just sit around for a decade twiddling your thumbs and making "ok" cash for your level of responsibility.

My husband's ex-boss took a job in Chile recently -- he's 36, they wouldn't promote him here to a top-level position. He moved to Chile and he's now a GM of Sales and he's quadrupled his salary -- went from earning 10,000 pesos a month here to earning 10,000 USD. He got a company car and they're paying his rent for the first 2 years he's there. And cost of living in Santiago de Chile not that much higher than BA.

Honestly, Argentina not the place to grow your career in your 30s -- best to leave for other countries and come back on a transfer or a managerial job with a multi-national.

 

[SaraSara]

My husband's ex-boss took a job in Chile recently -- he's 36, they wouldn't promote him here to a top-level position. He moved to Chile and he's now a GM of Sales and he's quadrupled his salary -- went from earning 10,000 pesos a month here to earning 10,000 USD. He got a company car and they're paying his rent for the first 2 years he's there.

I'm sorry to hear about your husband company's shortsighted policy, but it is not the same everywhere. My godson started selling wine for a local winery - he was soon promoted to section manager, and later was picked to head the entire sales department. He's thirty six, with only a high school education. He had no family money, no connections, and no inside track to help him get the job. Got there all by himself, with just his brains and a lot of enthusiasm.

Now he has a house in a country club, a pool, two cars (one provided by his firm), and makes about seven times what his psychiatrist brother does.

It is possible to have a career in Argentina - lots of people are making lots of money. Just look at all the imported cars on the streets. A Honda CR-V is US$48,000, and there are plenty of them around.

As to the US, things are not so rosy there right now: recent graduates can't find jobs and lots of middle-management people have been fired, while many others have been forced to take hefty pay cuts. As the local saying goes: "Esta dura la calle" - It's tough out there.

 

[ghost]

Back to the subject at hand. This person has the opportunity to work for his company in AR but they aren't telling him the salary. That's strange. I wonder if their HR dept knows about the fact that he cannot even rent a house without double warrantees.
And what about having a car?
Argentina has a 6X difficulty factor that makes the most simple facets of daily living into a daily challange.
Case in point....don't even consider moving your household items down. The duties and fees will make your head spin.
I'm not saying, don't come, just don't come blind.

 

[jp]

The industries that seem to be doing well are ones selling a high quality, low cost argentine product or service to an international market. Creative industries thrive here, but they generally make their money selling outside of Argentina.

It seems very unfair that a psychiatrist would get paid a pittance for a highly skilled job that commands a high salary in other parts of the world, but their prices have to reflect what their domestic customer base can afford.

Equally seems unfair very that porteros get better pay, benefits and perks than the people entrusted with keeping the city safe, educated and healthy - but thats the power of unions for you.

There's money to be made here, but what you get paid will very much depend on how much money you can make the company. If you bring in foreign clients paying euros or dollars, you'll likely be reimbursed accordingly. If you are chasing pesos in a massively competitive market your salary will reflect that.