The unemployment rate in Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America after Brazil, went down in december from 2021 a 3.5%, according to figures released this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INEGI).
However, the population employed in informality amounted to 32.2 million, more than half of the 56.39 million people who worked in the period, added the INEGI. The labor informality rate thus reached 56.5% last month.
The unemployment figure represents a decrease of 0.3 percentage points with respect to the rate of 3.8% registered in the same month of 2020.
“The unemployed population was 2.1 million people and implied a rate of 3.5%” of the Economically active population (PEA),” added INEGI.
Last December, the PEA reached 59 million people, a figure 4.3 million higher than that registered in December 2020.
Mexico does not have a national unemployment insurance scheme and more than half of the workers are employed in the informal sector.
The Institute defines as people in condition of labor informality to those who are vulnerable due to the nature of the economic unit for which they work, those who work without social security protection or workers whose labor dependency is not recognized by their source of employment.
In addition, the INEGI also pointed out that the underemployed population, that is, those who declared having the need and availability to work more hours, was 5.7 million people, a figure lower than the 1.7 million people in this condition registered in December 2020.
The Mexican economy would have grown 5.4% in 2021, according to the most recent forecast from the autonomous Bank of Mexico (central), which reduced a previous estimate of 6.2%.
Despite this, the government of leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains its forecast of a 6% rebound for last year.
This growth is mainly explained by a rebound in activity after the historical collapse of 8.5% in 2020, dragged down by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
IS
Topics
Read Also
.
