Afore withdrawals due to unemployment: external managers behind the increase
The president of the National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (Consar), Julio César Cervantes, recognized that unemployment withdrawals from Afore maintain an upward trend, driven mainly by the actions of external managers. During his participation in the AMIB 2026 funds forum, Cervantes insisted on the need to accelerate legal reforms to correct the current calculation mechanism.
“Unemployment retirement is a right of workers, but this benefit is being associated more with external management,” he noted.
According to data from Consar, between January and April of this year, 14,474 million pesos were withdrawn, an increase of 28.2% in nominal terms compared to the same period in 2024.
Impact on trading weeks
The agency warns that these withdrawals directly affect the weeks of contributions of workers. A withdrawal of the maximum amount allowed—close to 35 thousand pesos in type A—can imply the loss of approximately 120 weeks of contributions, equivalent to more than two years of work. Cervantes stressed that this especially hits those who alternate between formality and informality, since the deducted weeks can define whether or not they receive a pension when they retire.
Proposal for reform and reimbursement of resources
The pending reform to article 191 of the Social Security Law seeks to improve the calculation of the allowed amount and reduce the incentives that managers take advantage of. The initiative has already been raised in the Senate, but its progress depends on the legislative agenda.
Consar recommends that workers later return the withdrawn resources to their individual account. This process can be carried out directly with the Afore, in partial payments or in a single payment, which allows the discounted weeks to be recovered.
Despite this phenomenon, Cervantes highlighted that since the 2021 reform, some 400 thousand workers have requested a pension resolution from the IMSS, which shows positive results in access to pensions.




