Baja California recovers the first position in labor quality

At the end of the third quarter of 2022, Baja California recovered the first national place in labor quality, while Tlaxcala and Tabasco have been the states with the worst working conditions in the country for a year.

While so far this year, the entities that are located in the first five positions have been consolidated, stating that they have greater competence in employment compared to the rest of the Mexican Republic.

According to the State Occupation Quality and Competence Index of El Economista (ICCOE), Baja California managed to be the only state in the country with a green traffic light at the end of the third quarter of the year, that is, with a high level.

In addition, with his 82.8 points out of 100 possible, he snatched the first position from Jalisco, an entity that in the previous period enjoyed holding the top; currently it was placed in second place with 79.7 points, being at the yellow light (medium high level).

The first rung of Baja California derived from the constancy that it showed in the eight complementary rates that the ICCOE considers, highlighting that it presented the lowest indicator in the country in partial employment and unemployment.

This rate, which amounted to 5.72% of employed Baja Californians, considers the unemployed population and the employed population that worked less than 15 hours a week.

It also highlights that it had the third lowest employment rate in the informal sector 1 (TOSI1), of 18.29% of the employed who work for an economic unit that operates from household resources, but without establishing itself as a company, so that the activity does not have an identifiable and independent situation of that household.

Other indicators that show that Baja California is among the states with the best working conditions were the unemployment rate -3.22%, the fourth lowest; labor informality rate 1 (TIL1) -37.00%, the fifth-, and general pressure rate (TPRG) -4.31%, the sixth-.

Meanwhile, in the salaried work rate it had the sixth highest in Mexico, with 72.43% of its employees receiving a salary, wage or wage from the economic unit for which they work, for the activities carried out.

Regarding the third quarter of 2021, Baja California showed improvements in seven of the eight rates used in the ICCOE, highlighting the reduction in underemployment (from 5.00 to 3.22 percent).

The Achilles heel of the state, as in the entire national territory, was the rate of critical occupancy conditions (TCCO), since it increased in the 32 states.

The TCCO includes people who work less than 35 hours a week for reasons beyond their control, plus those who work more than 35 hours a week with monthly earnings below the minimum wage and those who work more than 48 hours a week earning up to two minimum wage.

top five

Other important players in the ICCOE were Jalisco (79.7 points), Chihuahua (78.9), Querétaro (77.0) and Aguascalientes (76.2); all these in yellow light.

This group of states has been in the top 5 for three consecutive quarters, that is, they are the five entities with the best quality in Mexico.

Although Mexico City, the country’s economic engine, also stood out, registering two years in a row at a red light (low level), the capital being one of the entities with the worst working conditions.

Mexico City, with 32.4 points, was accompanied at the low level by Veracruz (34.0), Campeche (30.1), Oaxaca (28.9), Tabasco (17.6) and Tlaxcala (17.6).

With this result, Tlaxcala and Tabasco achieved a year being the worst states in terms of occupation, drawing attention to the second entity, since with the construction of the Dos Bocas refinery employment in Tabasco detonated, which in fact was together with Baja California and Chihuahua to be the first to recover their job market after the ravages of the pandemic.

SLP, with the greatest advance

According to the ICCOE, in the third quarter of this year, 14 entities showed progress in relation to the same period of 2021.

San Luis Potosí presented the highest growth, going from an index of 33.2 points in the first three months of last year to 52.3 points in the same period of this 2022, giving a positive difference of 19.1 points in one year.

The most pronounced decrease, which caused the increase in San Luis Potosí, occurred in the underemployment rate, which went from 20.81 to 5.91%; This variable is the percentage of employed persons who have the need and availability to offer more work time than their current occupation allows.

In Jalisco and Zacatecas there were no changes, while of the 16 entities that reduced their ICCOE, the largest was observed in Tamaulipas (from 53.9 to 37.5 points), due to increases in the rates of general pressure, critical conditions in occupation, employment in the informal sector 1, as well as the decrease in salaried workers.

The objective of the ICCOE is to know how the 32 entities of the country are in labor matters, mainly in access to work and quality of employment, and in turn to carry out a ranking of competition among local governments.

The index was made using eight complementary rates of employment and unemployment, obtained from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment of the Inegi: unemployment, partial employment and unemployment, general pressure, salaried work, underemployment, critical conditions of employment, labor informality and employment in The informal sector.

In each rate, a state ranking was carried out to assign a value.

estados@eleconomista.mx