Young workers are the victims of COVID-19 unemployment in Mexico

Young

people

in Mexico are more resistant to coronavirus but not to the unemployment caused by the health emergency. Over half of the layoffs that took place during the last two months corresponded to people between 15 and 29 years old , according to data of the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) .

Between May and April 2020, 375,714 workers of less than 30 years old were dismissed from their jobs, a number that represents 55% of the 658,840 dismissals of the period. Seven out of every 10 youths who lost their jobs were men and three were women.

The Mexican states that reported the major number of dismissals among this sector of the population are: Mexico City (65,876), Quintana Roo (49,584), Nuevo León (30,689), Jalisco (25,970), Estado de México (21,173), and Querétaro (15,174).

These six states comprise 55% of the dismissals among the young population.

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More outsourcing

According to Raymundo Tenorio , professor emeritus of the Tec de Monterrey, most young workers who lost their jobs were hired by outsourcing companies because they can dismiss their employees faster.

“At least 75% of the youths who have lost their jobs were hired via outsourcing , in which they work for big corporations, related to finance, banking, and entertainment services, as well as logistics,” asserted the professor.

From March 13 to April 6 , that is, only two weeks, 346,878 people were dismissed out of which 294,329 (85%) worked in medium and large firms with over 51 employees, according to Luisa María Alcalde, head of the Work Ministry .

The loss of jobs among young workers is the result of several factors, mainly the fact that they have worked for a short time in their companies, in addition to earning low wages , so the cost of their dismissal and possible compensation is less expensive for their employers.

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Labor seniority

Six out of 10 young workers in Mexico have, at most, three years seniority , and 65% do not earn more than two daily mínimum wages, that is MXN $7,393 at best, according to the National Survey of Employment by Mexico’s National Statistics agency (INEGI).

During the first three months of the year, previous to the effects of the measures implemented due to the health emergency by the federal government that entailed the closure of 6,689 establishments in April (according to the number of employers who unsubscribed from the IMSS), there were 980,000 unemployed young workers , half of those who lost their jobs in that period.

“Unfortunately, young workers will keep on suffering from layoffs in the next months; the same will happen in May and the projection for them is that, as the activities in which they worked restart, they might be able to get back their jobs,” said Raymundo Tenorio.

It will be perhaps until September when that re-employment will show in IMSS figures; nevertheless, the generation of jobs will be sufficient to compensate for the loss, so the expert thinks that there could be 769,000 formal jobs by the end of 2020 compared to the previous year.

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