Telework, the only way to achieve parity on inflation in times of crisis Argentina

In both cases, the economic return is undeniable: the payment is in dollars, and While the currency has risen 19% so far this year, these professionals have already gained inflation in our country, which between January and April was 15.6%. Here lies the competitiveness of teleworking offers, be it dependency or freelance.

"The good thing is mainly a money issue because you have your first global salary in something that makes you into a third world"he explained to minutouno.com Gonzalo Pozzo, a front-end programmer who charges $ 40 per hour for "running applications that work on the Web" for two companies, one from the Netherlands and the other from the United States .

Pozzo, 27, manages his schedules and chooses whether he works at home in Quilmes, in the office of the American company in Palermo or when he travels Patagonia. Any option is valid while fulfilling its objectives within the deadlines set by its leaders Dutch The Next Ad or American Worcket is a "Tinder but of work".

"Imagine that you are in Quilmes: your job bank is limited to 20 or 30 km, most companies are isolated. When working remotely, you have no limit. You are open to everyonesaid Pozzo, who works in a dependency relationship with the Dutch and American governments, although for AFIP he is a monotributist.

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The The fiscal aspect of teleworking is not a minor problem because "when you go over a certain number, you become a registered person, and that for a developer, it's very bad because you can not deduct profits from any where", as Pozzo explains, implying that" you lose up to 60% of your salary at the end of the year if you do everything right ".

"Most countries, when they started to see that this technology was giving them a lot of tax money, they tried to make the developers empty, that they could charge. Basically, they have reduced taxes (on activity), "said Pozzo, citing the case of the United Arab Emirates, which does not charge VAT or gross revenue to software companies or developers.

"Here in Argentina, taxes have been doubled and As of March 1, they charge us for deductions because they say that intelligence is (a good) tangible.. From every invoice you make as an exporter of services, in addition to the payment of monotax, gross income and VAT, you must pay the retention, which is 13% for every dollar billed"he listed.

"With the employer from the outside, the situation is completely transparent because you are not interested in any tax situation here. What's going on, is that for the country, it ends up losing money because programmers are not regularized. They find other ways of billing that are not part of the system to avoid all those taxes that charge you, "agreed Pozzo.

The life of an employee in a relationship of dependence with a company in Argentina seems simpler from a tax point of view. In fact, a study of the OpenQube platform revealed that as of January 2019 only 2.24% of employees in the Systems area work remotely for another country while 85.4% work full-time for a local company.

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"In Argentina, the demand for programmers is very strong, the technology scene is very good and getting better and better, and I think you have to bet on that"he stressed minutouno.com Belén Curcio, senior developer of his programming agency, earlysquad.com, who works with local and foreign clients such as Page12 or OpenZeppelin.

"The reality is also that a large part of our production is aimed at foreign customers and "Rates" managed at the global and national levels vary considerably. This is why many freelancers or companies end up looking for international customers. I think you can find a good balance, have national and international customers, but that's one of everyone's priorities, "he said.

The Chamber of Software and Computer Services Companies (CESSI) of Argentina reported that the average monthly salary of programmers in January 2019 $ 30,471 for juniors, $ 43,471 for semi-seniors and $ 58,880 for seniors. Although the figures are not insignificant, they can not compete with Pozzo's 12-hour weekly work at US $ 40 each.

If you take into account that the peso devaluation since June 2018 was 81.7% and that inflation from last April to April was 55.8% (according to INDEC), workers who charge in dollars had some sort of collective agreement that gave them an advantage over the Argentine labor market.

The advantage is also for the foreign employer to take into account local talent at a cost that lighten the budget. "A developer here who is just starting out can get $ 1,500 or $ 1,800. when wages are US $ 6000", explained Pozzo in the case of a Berlin company.

On the other hand, Curcio, 26, works among the 18 years in computer science but has never received any computing science. Instead, he is studying biology at the University of Buenos Aires because Having a title is not an exclusive condition to open a path in programming.

"3 years ago, and having the essential of my professional experience in offices, I had the opportunity to work in Mozilla completely remotely and from that moment, I did not abandon this modality, "commented the programmer, although freedom presents dangers, because" if we are not well organized this can be very detrimental ".

"You do not know when to cut because Visually do not have this alert, for example, that your clbadmates finish their work day and you stay after an hour. Soon, schedules start to mix and if we do not plan well the day, it can be complicated, "he warned.

Telecommuting is complicated, but not impossible, given that a platform like Freelancer.com at 400,000 users since you activated your service in Argentina in 2012.

The platform operates "in a way that is substantially similar to Amazon or Mercado Libre, but instead of selling products, professional services are sold," he said. minutouno.com the deputy director of the Argentine headquarters, Sebastián Siseles.

The mechanism is simple: a company or person is looking for a particular service – the platform has 1350 job categories called "skills" – and define your budget and delivery time. For their part, freelancers offer their proposals at a price set by themselves and, if there is an agreement between the parties, the platform offers models of contracts – including a confidentiality – for commercial relations.

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The the average value of trade on the platform is 205 USDsaid Siseles, although there are agreements from US $ 30 to US $ 170,000, more than anything in "the issues related to information technology", such as the development of applications, testing and programming.

"But in Argentina in particular everything that is part of the creators has always been very sought after"Siseles said, the third most requested element is that of translators, especially English-Spanish, because"just go to the UBA and see the translator's career (in which) you have a lot of (options), which is not so common in other countries. "

Of course, when choosing an independent provider It is advisable to look at the qualifications given for their previous jobs because if you make the logo of your company, are you going to go to a person who has a reputation, who is in the norms, or will you go to one who offers you two hands and you do not know who c & # 39; s "? as Siseles says.

The exit is not at Ezeiza

Neither Curcio nor Pozzo dream of badembling their suitcases and emigrating to one of the countries from which they were hired. From Buenos Aires and Quilmes respectively they have pioneered themselves to get into the job market that is theirs.

"I have been offered visas, I have been to New York several times, where the offices of the New York Times and Mozilla are located.but for short periods and to join the team ", explained Curcio about the companies with which he always contributes. Speak, an open source project to improve online communication.

"For a while, I wanted to emigrate but I came to the conclusion that I wanted to stay in Argentina with my family and my friends, encourage the local industry to work with domestic customers and create my agency, which has become my priority", condemned the programmer.

"It depends a lot on each person," Pozzo agreed. "For example, the Dutch company offers to move and travel once a year to go to society, "he said, although in his case they also weighed the desire to stay in the country.

After all, the rooting is different when it is possible to work at home, in an office in Palermo or in the bar of a Caribbean beach where the WiFi signal is good.