Economic Crisis and Unemployment Raise Mexico's Informal Job Level Patricia Mumoz Rios - La Jornada
go to original March 22, 2015

Puerto Vallarta: From Informal to Formal Employment (International Labour Organization)

Mexico, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Peru, are the five Latin American countries with the greatest informal employment rates on the continent. In Mexico, in response to the economic crisis and the lack of formal employment, street vendors are multiplying on a daily basis. More and more citizens are starting businesses in their homes, and a growing number of unemployed people are offering their services on their own. They wander about selling products or offering them to friends and family.

The report called Thematic Labor Panorama: Transition to Formal Employment in Latin America and the Caribbean, drawn up by the International Organization of Labor (OIT, for its Spanish acronym), shows that five percent of those in the economically active population (EAP) in Mexico have an informal job within their own home. Fourteen percent work informally in established businesses, that is, they are “propineros” (people working for tips) who do not have a fixed wage or are paid a commission for what they sell. They also are not enrolled in Social Security [health insurance and pension benefits].

In Mexico, according to information from OIT, 58 percent of the EAP is in the informal economy in various modalities. There are even those who are situated in what is called “underemployed of the underemployed”; that is, those who labor for a boss who is also an informal laborer.

This organization’s investigation shows that the creation of formal employment represents a principal challenge for the Latin American region in the present decade. It specifies that, in Mexico, 77.8 percent of construction workers are informal workers, as well as 65.5 percent of those who labor in restaurants and hotels, 41.5 percent of those who work in the manufacturing industry, 16.7 percent of those who are in mining and quarry development and 54.8 percent of transportation workers.s, sweets and an endless quantity of products.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Penn Tomassetti

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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