A UNLP report warns that activity lost momentum in the last quarter and exposes a fragile scenario, with key sectors in decline and salaries deteriorating.
The economy of La Plata turned on warning lights at the end of 2025. After a start to the year with some indicators in recovery, activity fell again in the final stretch and revealed a scenario weak, uneven and without clear growth drivers.
According to the report of the Sectorial and Territorial Development Laboratory of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the National University of La Plata, local economic activity fell 0.9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. The data confirms that the initial rebound was losing strength until closing the year in negative territory.
In the general balance, the economy showed growth of 2.2% compared to 2024, although that number hides strong contrasts. The improvement was driven by specific sectors such as automotive trade — which grew 47.4% —, the real estate market and the financial sector, without achieving a widespread recovery.
Key sectors in decline
The central problem is that the activities with greater weight in the productive structure did not accompany this improvement. He retail trade accumulated eleven consecutive quarters of decline and closed the year with a drop of 6.4%.
Construction also deepened its deterioration, with a fall of 6% annually and a collapse of 10.3% in the last quarter. The industry, for its part, barely grew 0.4% throughout the year and fell again at the end, with a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%.
Added to this is the decline of the public administration, the sector with the greatest weight in the local economy, which has been experiencing a sustained contraction since the beginning of 2024.
Employment and wages, in decline
The impact of this scenario was transferred to the labor market. In Greater La Plata, the employment rate fell 1.4 percentage points year-on-year in the last quarter of 2025, while unemployment rose from 8.1% to 9,5%.
In parallel, real salaries continued to deteriorate: in the private sector they fell 0.5% and in the public sector 0.9%, with incomes that in the latter case are still more than 9 points below 2023.
The slowdown in activity is also reflected in commerce. A recent survey showed a 180% increase in empty premises between January and February 2026 compared to the same period of the previous year, marking the continuity of the fall.
A weak rebound without continuity
In the case of the manufacturing industry, the report indicates that it only grew in three of the last eight years, which shows a sector with low dynamism and structural difficulties. In addition, it faces an increasingly challenging context due to competition from imported products.
In short, the La Plata economy went through a short, weak and concentrated recovery in few sectors. The fall of the last quarter not only stopped this recovery, but once again revealed a hit production network, with depressed consumption, declining employment and warning signs that already impact daily life.
