Moderate Employment Growth in November

Mexico’s employed workforce grew by 119,098 people in November, showing a significant deceleration against October when the market added 1.3 million jobs. Nevertheless, this modest growth has effectively helped to push unemployment to its lowest point since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to INEGI’s National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE).

The global health crisis triggered the loss of more than 12 million jobs across both the formal and informal labor market, detailed the agency report. Contrary to projections, the country has experienced a strong macroeconomic rebound over the past 11 months, which in turn has helped to fuel job creation. This momentum led to the creation of an additional 731,837 jobs to the labor market that did not exist before March of 2020. Overall, this has minimized the unemployment rate by 3 base points since October, now standing at 3.6 percent.

“Employment creation and the drop in unemployed and available populations rates are reflected in improvements in the rates of open and extended unemployment, which stood at 3.66 percent and 14.65 percent, respectively. Both rates are at their lowest levels since March 2020,” explained Gabriela Siller, Director of Economic and Financial Analysis, Banco Base.

Of the total workforce representing 56.5 million people, 67.2 percent people are subordinate and paid workers, an increase of almost 2 million people since last year. Meanwhile, 23.4 percent have moved to work independently, reflecting an increase of 1.2 million people. Of this workforce, 32.9 million receive an income between one and two minimum wages, representing a decrease of 8,000. The number of people who earn up to five minimum wages also decreased, from 1.4 million in October 2021 to 1.2 million in November 2021.

While 68 percent of the jobs created in November were in the informal labor market, this segment slightly contracted aginst last year, dropping 0.5 percentage points to 31.4 million people. People within this subsector face uncertainty in the months ahead as the country faces both an economic slowdown, according to report by Banxico, and a new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, which put governments on high alert globally as contagion figures ballooned.

“In the case of Mexico, existing sanitary measures have not been strengthened and economic activities are not expected to be suspended. However, economic activity, which is already slowing its growth rate, could be affected by voluntary measures on the part of consumers or the private initiative,” explained Banco Base.