Río Negro Bets on Skills Centers and Local Suppliers Law for Mining-Energy Boom
Río Negro today defines two priorities in response to the mining and energy growth underway in the province: developing its own workforce and ensuring that local SMEs enter the supplier chain of major projects. This was stated by Labor Secretary María Martha Avilez, who confirmed that the province has just opened its ninth skills center in Río Colorado, and that the Rio Negro Suppliers Law is now operating with a dual oversight system to guarantee that both companies and their workforce are from Rio Negro.
Avilez was in Mendoza for the Employment and Mining Forum held at the Legislature and gave an interview to Comunicaciones Mineras.
The Skills Centers Network as the Backbone of Workforce Development
If there was one data point the official chose to highlight as "the great achievement" of provincial employment policy, it was the growth of the skills centers.
When major mining and energy projects launched, Río Negro had five centers operating. That number rose to seven and, as Avilez confirmed, "Governor Alberto Weretilneck has opened the ninth training center, which will launch new capacity in Río Colorado," she noted.
The system operates through enabling agreements with UOCRA Foundation, the entity that certifies and accredits these facilities.
Río Negro works with labor organizations and the business sector to develop workforce profiles. (Courtesy: Río Negro Government).
"They are designed for two distinct profiles: on one hand, people who have already worked in various trades and need to certify or update skills; on the other, young people finishing secondary school without a defined path toward technical or university education, but who need a fast track into the labor market," the official explained.
The pedagogical approach, according to Avilez, is based on short and stackable pathways that allow participants to graduate certified in the shortest time possible. But she emphasized one condition that runs through the entire scheme: content definition is not left exclusively to the state, but is determined "at the table" with the private sector, which determines where training and skills certification programs should focus.
This territorial framework is complemented by the Rio Negro Labor Competency Development Unit (URDCL), which Avilez presented at the Mendoza forum as the innovative initiative of her administration. The unit works with the provincial Education Ministry to certify competencies and partners with UOCRA Foundation, UOCRA, IERIC and YPF (through its Foundation area), among other entities contributing to training. According to data provided by the official, URDCL now reaches more than 14 localities across the province and has already certified over 600 people.
Avilez stressed that both instruments—skills centers and URDCL—respond to the same framework: neither the state alone can meet the qualified workforce demand generated by mining and Vaca Muerta, nor does it make sense to provide training without the private sector first defining its real profile needs.
Rio Negro Suppliers Law
The second axis the official developed in greater detail was the supplier value chain, a point she defined as one of the sector's major debates: whether Rio Negro SMEs are prepared, trained and certified to be part of the mining and Vaca Muerta boom, and whether they comply with ARCA requirements.
The tool the province uses is the Rio Negro Suppliers Law, which enables small and medium-sized local enterprises to join the value chain as providers of goods and services for mining and energy projects. The mechanism requires that every open tender for a service, structure or any related work needed for the main projects must oblige companies to also call for Rio Negro suppliers.
Avilez detailed that there is an additional oversight mechanism from the Labor Secretariat itself: not only is it verified that the SMEs winning those contracts are from Rio Negro, but the workforce they employ to provide those goods and services is also from there. "There is a kind of dual control," she summarized.
To sustain this system, the province built a digital supplier registry managed by the Energy Secretariat, designed as the entry gateway for local entrepreneurs into the value chain.
The official was clear about the requirement that this registry entails: registration alone is not enough, because the provider portals of operating companies themselves require ongoing training and certification to remain eligible. That is why "the Secretariat supports SMEs in that transition toward more demanding certification standards," Avilez stressed during her visit to Mendoza.