\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Private consumption continued its drop rate in May, falling 0.3% month-on-month and 2.2% year-on-year, marking its sixth consecutive annual decline, according to a report by the University of Palermo (UP).<\/p>\n
In the first five months of 2026, the cumulative drop reached 1.8%. Against this backdrop, supermarkets and wholesale retailers identified a lack of demand as the primary obstacle to expanding their activity, according to the latest Business Trend Survey by statistics institute INDEC.<\/p>\n
Mass consumption continues its downward trend, led by beef sales, which have contracted for 10 consecutive months, falling 13% year-on-year in April. While poultry sales declined 2.5%, pork sales saw growth, rising 6.2% year-on-year in April and 11% in the first four months of the year.<\/p>\n
Shrinking demand On Thursday, INDEC reported that 62.6% of supermarkets and wholesale stores pointed to demand as the main factor limiting commercial activity. This concern has deepened since three months ago, when the figure stood at 54.5%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diagnosis is also reflected in the perception of the current situation. A third of the firms (33%) rated their business situation as \u201cbad,\u201d while only 6.6% considered it \u201cgood.\u201d The balance between positive and negative responses resulted in a net negative of -26.4%.<\/p>\n
Business owners show slight optimism for the future, though they do not expect a significant recovery. While 18.7% believe business will improve during the June-August quarter, 12.1% anticipate a worsening, and nearly seven out of 10 companies expect the scenario to remain unchanged.<\/p>\n
Cooling indicators and durable goods Household spending indicators tracked by the UP show further signs of cooling. Real VAT (IVA) collection fell 3% year-on-year in May, while credit card purchases recorded a 3.5% real decline the first such drop since the recovery following the 2024 recession began.<\/p>\n
The durable goods sector showed mixed results, as motorcycle registrations grew 26% year-on-year in May, though the pace is slowing. Automobile registrations, meanwhile, fell 26.2% compared to May 2025, their fourth decline of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bagged cement shipments, an indicator linked to small-scale construction, fell 8.3% in May, accumulating a 8.9% drop so far in 2026.<\/p>\n
Recreation and tourism also showed signs of retreat after a brief expansion in the first two months of the year. Consumption in traditional Buenos Aires City restaurants fell 2.9% year-on-year in April, while cinema attendance and food court consumption in shopping centers both plummeted by approximately 20% in March.<\/p>\n
Fewer orders, caution on hiring According to the INDEC survey, just 2.2% of supermarkets expect to increase the volume of orders placed with suppliers over the next three months, while 15.4% anticipate cutting back and 82.4% believe order volumes will remain unchanged.<\/p>\n
Employment prospects also show little sign of expansion. Only 1.1% of companies expect to hire additional staff, compared to 18.7% that foresee workforce reductions.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, the sector\u2019s business confidence indicator remained in negative territory at -4%, reflecting that improving expectations have yet to offset the weakness companies are currently experiencing.<\/p>\n
Originally published in mbito<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Private consumption continued its drop rate in May, falling 0.3% month-on-month and 2.2% year-on-year, marking its sixth consecutive annual decline, according to a report by the University of Palermo (UP). In the first five months of 2026, the cumulative drop reached 1.8%. Against this backdrop, supermarkets and wholesale retailers identified a lack of demand as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":79346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1319,42,3183],"tags":[13602,96,4434],"class_list":["post-79345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-consumption","category-economics","category-indec","tag-consumption","tag-economics","tag-indec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}