In December, 345,705 formal jobs were lost

Despite the invitation made by the federal government to companies in the country, to avoid the closure of jobs in the month of December, there was a loss of formal employment of 345,705 jobs, the highest level for the same month since 2019, when 382,200 places were lost.

The largest number of canceled positions impacted permanent employment with 68.5% of the casualties; while in the case of temporary jobs, the fall was 108,812 jobs.

However, the IMSS highlighted in its report that “this rate is the third lowest in the last 7 years and is less than the average annual percentage variation of the Decembers since it was recorded, of -1.8 percent.”

According to the federal authorities, for the third consecutive year, employers were identified who, historically, terminate their personnel before the IMSS and Infonavit to rehire them in the month of January.

At the time, they pointed out that this practice had a negative impact on workers’ labor, social security and housing rights. “These casualties are totally irregular, since during January 2022, 126,256 people who were laid off in December 2021 were rehired with the same company.”

According to IMSS data, last year 312,902 jobs were lost in December, while in 2020 the losses were 277,820 jobs; and if 2019 is considered, prior to the pandemic, the loss of job positions was 382,210.

Iván Arias, director of Economic Studies at Citibanamex, predicted that a similar drop in the number of jobs was expected by the end of 2022, that is, a decrease of around 300,000 jobs.

Analysts link losses to seasonality

He explained that this behavior occurs on the one hand because there will be a slowdown in the growth of these records, although, “there are still effects of the outsourcing law that makes companies continue to register employees that they did not have properly registered in their companies, no longer it is so significant and the second reason is seasonality”.

Meanwhile, Héctor Márquez Pitol, president of the Mexican Association of Human Capital Companies (AMECH), “this phenomenon was not modified by sanitary conditions and regulations on subcontracting, since it is a seasonal aspect.”

“The decreases in December that are registered in formal employment originate from the end of jobs in temporary works, production closures and seasonal sales, a phenomenon that has arisen in response to seasonal factors, and not to the use of subcontracting.” , stressed Héctor Márquez.

Finally, José Luis de la Cruz, director of the IDIC, maintained that the cancellation of jobs is due to the fact that a slowdown in the industrial sector is beginning to be noticed, “and on the other hand, the seasonal effect that practically since the statistics of the IMSS, reports on average the closure of 300,000 places”.

It should be noted that at the end of 2022, a generation of 752,748 jobs was registered, with an annual rate of 3.7%; of which 75.9% correspond to permanent jobs.

Data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare indicate that within a year of the entry into force of the subcontracting reform, 3 million workers joined a direct employer, who also began to receive other benefits such as profit sharing .

However, there are still five states of the Republic that have not managed to recover the employment that they had prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.