The National Institute of Statistics doesn't lie. In March 2026, the unemployment rate in Uruguay jumped to 7.8%. The activity rate fell to 64.3% and the employment rate plunged to 59.3%. Four tenths more than in February. Four tenths more than in January. Four tenths that are not a “seasonal adjustment” or a “technical rebound”: they are the first clear symptom that the interventional machinery that promised “more work for everyone” is starting to squeak
and leave people on the street.
Look at the cold numbers, without anesthesia. By January 2026, unemployment had already risen to 7.4%. In February, it stagnated at the same 7.4%. In March, it jumped to 7.8%. In absolute terms, we are talking about more than 175,000 Uruguayans out of work. The economically active population is around 2.25 million people. At every point of unemployment there are thousands of families that stop consuming, thousands of young people who postpone projects and thousands of companies that stop hiring because the cost of doing so is increasing
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And this doesn't fall from the sky. It is the predictable result of a logic that always repeats the same equation: the State promises to “protect” employment, increases salaries by decree, tightens regulations, multiplies public spending, burdens the private sector... and in the end the labor market contracts. Because genuine employment is not created by an advertisement in the Executive Tower. It is created by private investment that sees profitability and certainty. When that investment flees or shrinks, employment disappears. It's elementary mathematics, not ideology
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Let's compare with hard data from recent years. During the previous government, unemployment, after the brutal shock of the pandemic, had fallen consistently and closed at around 8% on average, with recovery peaks that brought the employment rate to historically high levels in some months of 2024 and 2025. Now, in the first full year of the current government, the economy grew just 1.8% in 2025, well below the 2.6% that the Ministry of Economy and Finance itself had projected. The fourth quarter of 2025 practically stagnated (growth of 0.1% quarter-on-quarter). Economic activity that cools, employment that cools. Causality, not coincidence
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The real wage went up, yes. Inflation is low (3.46% year-on-year at the beginning of 2026, the lowest in 25 years). 26,000 jobs were created in 2025, according to official accounts. But these numbers hide the other side of the coin: consolidated public spending is still pressing, the fiscal deficit closed 2025 at close to 4.9% of GDP (excluding some trusts) and the private sector feels the burden of a tax burden that does not ease. When the State spends more than it collects and finances with debt or taxes, it does not “create” net employment: it simply transfers resources from the productive sector to the political sector. The employment seen in the public sector or in welfare programs is visible. Employment that ceases to be created in industry, commerce or services because the businessman prefers not to risk is invisible... but it exists
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Look by gender and region, as the INE does. Women continue to suffer from higher unemployment rates than men (8.9% versus 6.9% in March). Montevideo and the metropolitan area tend to show worse figures than the interior (8.4% versus 7.1%). Young people aged 14 to 24 have rates that exceed 20% in some quarters. The least qualified are the first to fall when labor regulations increase the cost of hiring. And now, with proposals such as the reduction of working hours that the president himself and his Minister of Labor have put on the table, the labor cost per hour worked rises even higher. Result? Fewer hours offered, fewer hires, more informality or directly less formal employment. We already know the story: every time someone who already has a job is “protected”, the one who is looking for one is harmed
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The mechanism is always the same. The price of work is intervened (minimum wages, compulsory wage advice, million-dollar compensation, reduced working hours). It intervenes in the price of money (expense financed with an issue or debt). Private investment is involved (greater regulatory and fiscal burden). And when the market doesn't respond as the planner expected, instead of correcting, the “market”, the “drought”, the “unstable world” or the previous government is blamed. Never to the recipe itself.
This isn't just Yamandú Orsi's fault. It is the bitter fruit of a system that all governments — regardless of their political color, ideological sign or campaign discourse — have maintained and deepened decade after decade. White, red or broad-front, all have embraced the same interventionist logic: more regulations, more centralized wage councils, more public spending that displaces private spending, more promises of “protection” that end up stifling the spontaneous creation of employment. The problem is not the name of the current president. It is the model itself, which everyone preserves because it suits the political apparatus and electoral clientelism. The result is always the same: more unemployment, more informality and fewer opportunities for those who really need to work
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Uruguay does not have a problem of “lack of growth”. It has a problem of lack of economic freedom. Each additional point of unemployment is the bill paid by the most vulnerable for a vision that believes that the State can replace the market. It can't. He never could. It can only shift the cost into the future: more debt, less investment, less real employment
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In March 2026, unemployment reached 7.8%. This is not an isolated fact. It is the confirmation that the model that prioritizes control over the spontaneous creation of wealth is beginning to show its cracks. And cracks, as always, are paid for by those who have the least
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The worst government in history is not the one that inherits problems. He is the one who, having the numbers in favor in some areas, decides to deepen the same recipes that have historically ended in stagnation and frustration. Uruguayans already know this: when the State promises “full employment” by decree — whoever is sitting in the Executive Tower — the only thing that really grows is the number of unemployed people. Welcome to 7.8%. And counting.
