Redacción The Public Employment Gig in Uruguay: From the Colorado Party to the Broad Front
The arrangements don't stop.
In Uruguay, public employment has been more of a political tool than a service to the citizenry. For decades, the Colorado Party used the state apparatus as a clientelist machine, hiring at discretion, distributing positions, and ensuring loyalties in exchange for votes. However, what was once a practice of the Colorado Party, the Broad Front has perfected and taken to a new level.
Currently, Uruguay has nearly 300,000 public employees in a country of only 3.5 million inhabitants. This means that approximately 10% of the population works for the State. To understand the magnitude of this figure, it is useful to compare with the United States, which with 300 million inhabitants has 2.4 million public employees, that is, less than 1%.
The Broad Front has found in public employment a key ally to win elections. Between 2005 and 2019, while talking about social justice, about 70,000 new public officials were incorporated. These 70,000 new salaries, financed by all citizens, mostly correplied to positions without a real need, but with a clear objective: to create a base of loyal voters.
This strategy explains how the Broad Front has won elections with relatively narrow margins. It's not magic, but clientelism. The cost of this model is:
- Increasingly higher taxes.
- 60% of every peso caused remains in the hands of the State.
- Deficient services, inefficiency, and endless bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, private sector workers and entrepreneurs, who sustain this entire structure, are suffocated by taxes and bureaucratic procedures. The result is a stagnant economy, few investments, and a widespread feeling that the population's effort is aimed at maintaining a parasitic political structure.
This model is not new; we already saw it in the past with the Colorados, but the Broad Front has taken it to unprecedented and unsustainable levels. Meanwhile, the country remains stagnant.
How long will we continue to maintain this system? Prepare for the next 5 years.
More posts: