Mexico’s Logistics Costs Stabilize, Talent Turnover Rises

The Fourth National Logistics Indicators Study finds wide performance gaps across Mexico’s supply chains, especially in forecasting, fulfillment, and operational efficiency.

Mexico’s logistics sector maintained high customer-service levels in 2025 and made progress in controlling distribution costs, but weaker forecasting, rising employee turnover and uneven environmental measurement continue to expose operational gaps, according to the Fourth National Logistics Indicators Study.

The report, prepared by #SoyLogístico Asociación in collaboration with LDM Empowering Your Supply Chain, EGADE Business School, and Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, analyzes data from 2023 to 2025. More than 160 companies participated across retail, logistics services, manufacturing, food, construction, automotive, and health and pharmaceutical industries. 

The study divides companies into three performance categories: leaders in the top 20%, organizations with medium maturity between the 30th and 80th percentiles, and lagging companies in the bottom 30%. Large businesses represented 77% of the 2025 sample, while 43% of participating companies reported annual revenue between MX$1 billion and MX$10 billion. The results indicate that Mexico’s supply chains are moving toward more data-based management, but significant differences persist between leading and lagging organizations.

Service Levels Remain High Despite Forecasting Gaps

Customer order fill rates remained above 90% across all industries in 2025. Manufacturing, logistics services, and retail each recorded a 96% fill rate, while automotive reached 96%, food 95%, construction 94%, and health and pharmaceuticals 94%.

However, the difference between performance groups was considerable. Leading companies averaged a 99% sales fill rate, compared with 97% among medium-maturity companies and 90% among lagging businesses. Some companies in the lowest-performing group reported rates as low as 65%.

Perfect-order performance, which measures whether an order is captured, processed and delivered correctly and completely, also remained elevated. Automotive, manufacturing and retail improved slightly during the period, reaching 93% in 2025. Health and pharmaceuticals declined from 100% in 2023 to 96% in 2025, while logistics services fell from 97% to 95%.

Forecast accuracy emerged as a more pronounced weakness. Health and pharmaceutical companies led the indicator at 84% in 2025, followed by retail at 83% and manufacturing at 82%. Construction and automotive each stood at 81%, while logistics services reached 79% and food 77%.

The report identifies forecasting as one of the capabilities with the greatest influence across the supply chain because demand estimates affect purchasing, inventory, production, service and working capital. Forecast accuracy among leading companies averaged 95%, compared with 85% among medium-maturity businesses and only 66% among lagging organizations.

In the latter category, the lowest reported result was 5%, illustrating the substantial performance gap between companies that anticipate demand and those that operate reactively.

Transport Performance Softens as Talent Pressures Increase

The use of outsourced transportation varied considerably by sector in 2025. Logistics service companies reported the highest share at 74%, followed by retail at 73%, manufacturing at 66%, food at 55%, automotive at 47%, construction at 50%, and health and pharmaceuticals at 34%.

Container and truck utilization declined in several industries. Construction fell from 97% in 2024 to 88% in 2025, while automotive decreased from 91% to 86%. Manufacturing remained at 83%, and food maintained a relatively stable 87%.

The study interprets these changes as evidence that businesses are adjusting dispatch frequency and capacity to preserve flexibility rather than maximizing vehicle occupancy at all times.

On-time transport deliveries weakened slightly across the market. Most industries reported a 2025 result of between 93% and 94%, including health and pharmaceuticals, construction, manufacturing, logistics services, food and retail. Automotive recorded the lowest level at 89%.

The deterioration coincided with a sharp rise in logistics staff turnover. Food companies reported turnover of 49% in 2025, up from 29% in 2024. Logistics services rose from 22% to 38%, construction from 26% to 35%, and retail from 30% to 37%.

Automotive was the only sector to reduce turnover, falling from 40% to 31%. The report warns that employee departures can erode accumulated experience and service continuity, reinforcing the need for stronger compensation, training and career-development structures.

Carbon Measurement Expands but Remains Uneven

The percentage of surveyed businesses that did not measure their logistics carbon footprint fell from 84% in both 2023 and 2024 to 63% in 2025. Manufacturing and logistics services led adoption, representing 8% and 7% of the full sample, respectively, while food accounted for another 7%. The figures show that carbon monitoring is gaining traction, although most organizations still lack a formal measurement system.

Company size remains an important factor. Seventy-five percent of businesses with annual revenue above MX$10 billion reported measuring emissions. Smaller companies continued to lag, suggesting that technical capabilities, international customer requirements and access to resources are influencing adoption.

The report cautions that the sharp increase in emissions reported in 2025 may partly reflect more extensive monitoring rather than an equivalent increase in actual pollution. Larger organizations accounted for most disclosed emissions because they operate at greater scale and have more mature reporting systems.

Costs Stabilize Across Most Sectors

Transportation costs as a percentage of sales remained relatively controlled in 2025. Food averaged 9%, construction and automotive each averaged 10%, manufacturing and logistics services 7%, and health and pharmaceuticals and retail 6%. 

Automotive transportation costs increased from 2% in 2023 to 10% in 2025, reflecting the complexity of moving vehicles and components. By contrast, construction costs eased slightly from 11% to 10%. Distribution costs generally declined from 2024 levels. Construction dropped from 19% of sales to 13%, food from 18% to 9%, and retail from 12% to 9%. Automotive rose from 9% to 13%, while health and pharmaceuticals increased from 5% to 8%.

Total logistics costs averaged 18% of sales in the automotive sector and 17% in construction during 2025, the highest among the industries examined. Logistics services averaged 15%, manufacturing 13%, and health and pharmaceuticals 11%. Food and retail each averaged 12%.

The study argues that technology alone does not determine logistics maturity. The strongest organizations are those that connect people, processes and reliable information, allowing them to anticipate demand, control costs and maintain service under volatile market conditions.