Analysis of labor indicators in Mexico from the government perspective
In the context of her morning conference on Monday, December 9 at the National Palace, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, made a significant statement about the state of the national economy. The president celebrated that, according to the data managed by her administration, Mexico is positioned only behind Japan in terms of unemployment levels, a key indicator of economic health. In addition, he reiterated that the nation registers a historical maximum in the generation of formal jobs, attributing this achievement to a change in the economic model.
Sheinbaum argued that there is “a different economic model that the opposition does not accept” and maintained that “the people of Mexico live better today.” To frame the comparison with Japan, the executive leader added a crucial demographic nuance: “We are only beaten by Japan, which has a very different population pyramid from that of Mexico.” This observation is relevant, since Japan’s age structure, with a noticeably older population, directly influences its labor participation rate and unemployment figures.
Breakdown of the figures and the debate on labor formality
The president was emphatic when contrasting the current panorama with previous times: “The truth is that the people of Mexico live better today, and Mexico’s economy is better today than it was with neoliberalism, that is the truth and the data says it.” In his statement, he addressed a fundamental distinction in Mexican labor statistics: the coexistence of the formal and informal economies. Sheinbaum specified that the positive employment data “includes formal jobs and those of the so-called non-formal or informal economy,” although he highlighted separately that the number of formal jobs is also at its highest point.
This point is analytically critical. The unemployment rate reported (2.7% for Mexico) measures the percentage of the economically active population that is actively looking for work and cannot find it. However, it does not reflect the quality of employment, underemployment or the proportion of workers in the informal sector, sectors that have historically represented a structural challenge for the country’s economy. The emphasis on a “historic maximum” of formal jobs seeks to counteract this perception, signaling a strengthening of the formal sector.
Previously, on Friday of last week, the president had already shared these findings on her social networks, accompanied by an international comparative graph with the message: “Transformation gives results.” This graph detailed the ranking of countries with the lowest unemployment, placing Japan in first place with 2.6%, Mexico in second with 2.7%, and Germany in third with 3.8%. The list continued with other developed nations: Netherlands (4%), Australia (4.3%), United States (4.6%), Ireland (4.9%), Austria (5.8%), Italy (6%), Belgium (6.4%), France (7.7%), Sweden (9.1%), Finland (10.3%) and Spain (10.5%).
From a technical perspective, the proximity of the Mexican rate to the Japanese rate is a striking fact that deserves an in-depth examination of the measurement methodologies and the characteristics of each labor market. Mexico’s position ahead of economic powers and countries with robust welfare states raises a debate about the factors behind these figures, which range from the dynamism of certain productive sectors to the statistical and demographic particularities already mentioned. Sheinbaum’s conclusion, linking these results to the proximity to the citizens – “If we are close to the people, nothing is going to fail or everything is going to be taken care of” – moves the discourse from the purely numerical terrain to a political vindication of its management and the project of the so-called Fourth Transformation.
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