In the last 12 months, 486 thousand jobs have been created, which is equivalent to an annual growth rate of 2.2%, which is the lowest recorded since April 2021, when the effects of the pandemic were still being felt. Covid-19.

Yes, we see a slowdown in employment, jobs continue to be created, but at a slower pace, all the momentum that came from the construction sector stopped. "It no longer has 10% growth, it has already decreased to 3.3%."

May 2024 is the third time, for the same month in this six-year term, that formal employment has been lost in the country. According to the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), 25,203 jobs were cancelled, especially temporary jobs.

In 2020, due to the pandemic, up to 344,526 places were canceled in May; while for 2021 there was a recovery and in 2022 a new drop of 2,855 jobs was recorded, and for May of this year the drop represents 59.1% in the generation of jobs with social security.

Far from being a cyclical or seasonal behavior, Guillermina Rodríguez, deputy director of Economic Studies at Citibanamex, explained to El Economista that the IMSS data announces the slowdown, which although it will still bring job creation, it will be at a slower pace than expected. remainder of the year.

“Yes, we see a slowdown in employment, jobs continue to be created, but at a slower pace, all the momentum that came from the construction sector stopped. It no longer has 10% growth, it has already decreased to 3.3%,” Rodríguez explained.

Although the IMSS did not detail the reasons that led to the cancellation of affiliations, it did report that a record of 22 million 348,999 jobs is maintained, of which 86.3% are permanent and 13.7% are temporary.

The deputy director of Economic Studies highlighted the projections of formal employment for all of 2024, which remain at a growth of 2.6%, but this growth has downward risks; "Right now from January to May the average growth is 2.6%, and if this trend continues and if there is no recovery for the year, we will lower our forecasts."

The IMSS, for its part, said that in the last twelve months there has been a creation of 486,090 positions, which is equivalent to an annual rate of 2.2%, which is the lowest pace since April 2021 (0.7 percent).

The economic sectors with the highest annual percentage growth in jobs are transportation and communications with 5.8%; commerce with 3.6%, and construction with 3.3 percent.

However, the sectors that reported negative numbers were: agriculture with minus 2.1%; extractive 1.8% and transformation that barely reaches 0.2 percent.

Stagnant employment

For Jorge Sales Boyoli, labor specialist, formal employment in the country, which although it reflects only a part of the labor market, is already stagnant and only in the last three years has shown an important generation of employment; the first, after the pandemic (2021) and after 2022 when outsourcing was reformed.

“Social Security data has been stagnant for more or less two years; That is to say, the increases and reductions are marginal, they are always around 22 million, 21 million affiliations.”, indicated Sales Boyoli.

The states that faced zero generation of formal employment for May were Tabasco, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Baja California and Durango; In contrast, the states with positive numbers were Chiapas, Hidalgo and Quintana Roo with annual increases above 4.5 percent.

In the south of the country, the specialists agreed, “public investment in works such as the Mayan Train, or the Tulum airport ended,” we began to see drops in Tabasco of less than 10.7%; and they are not necessarily related to political issues, said Guillermina Rodríguez.

For Sales Boyoli, without a doubt, “and we also have this recorded in the statistics that we keep every six years, the month before the elections, hiring stops. “There is a kind of psychological phenomenon in the employer who thinks that something tragic is going to happen on election day.”

The first 5 months of the year have not been enough for the recovery of the employment that was lost in December 2023. Thus, the labor market experiences a deficit of 60,000 formal jobs, whether temporary or permanent.