The recovery of working market It was consolidated in April, a space in which a little more than a million people joined a job. With this data, the employed population in Mexico reached 57.7 million people, a new historical maximum for this indicator.
According to data from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), in the fourth month of the year the labor participation rate exceeded the level of 60% of the working age population for the first time in the course of the pandemic. In this way, it was very close to what was reported in February 2020 (60.2%), before the impact of the health emergency on the labor market.
“In the period, 1 million new jobs were created, spinning three months on the rise. Thus, total jobs are located 1.9 million above of those registered in February 2020, used as a pre-pandemic metric and which represents a new historical maximum,” said Juan Carlos Alderete, director of Economic Analysis at Banorte.
The profits reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) were mainly concentrated in the formal employment. Of the universe of 1 million 37,817 jobs generated in the month, 432,457 jobs were informal and 605,360 jobs were formal.
The data on new formal jobs contrasts with the figures reported by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) for the same period, when an advance of 5,490 jobs was reported. According to analysts, this could reflect higher hiring in other areas, such as the federal and state public administration, and the army.
Along with employment levels, underemployment also increased in April, that is, the number of people who work short hours and who have the need and availability to work longer. 433,537 people were added to this condition in the month, with which the underemployment rate it rose from 8.4 to 9.0 percent.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate had a slight rebound going from 2.97 to 3.03% between March and April, this due to the departure of more people to actively search for a job. When considering the inactive population, but available to work, the widespread unemployment rate stood at 14.2%, unchanged from what was reported the previous month.
Alfredo Sandoval Jaime, economic analyst at Banco Base, considered that the marginal increase in the unemployment rate, and that in practical terms implies that 71,046 people joined this condition in April, “should not be interpreted as bad data, since it was the result of a greater number of people entering the working market”.
By sectors, the main increases in employment in the fourth month of the year were concentrated in service sectormainly in commerce (443,348 beds), restaurants and hotels (408,982 beds) and in the public sector (145,915 beds), and in the agricultural activities (222,999 seats). Meanwhile, in the industry a decrease of 79,221 jobs was reported, mostly in construction.
Thus, two out of every three jobs generated in the reported period came from activities such as shops, restaurants and lodging services. In short, seven of the 12 economic activities reported by the Inegi had an increase in the number of people employed.
“Unlike previous months, the major contributors were services, since, for example, commerce, restaurants and accommodation generated 65.3% of total employment, which points to a good season for companies in the tourism sector. In fact, with April gains, restaurants and lodging surpassed their pre-pandemic peak for the first time in the recovery process, while retail jobs are just under 30,000 off their respective benchmark. , explained Marcos Daniel Arias Novelo, economic analyst at Monex.