The total number of formal sector jobs in Mexico rose by 846,416 in 2021, the biggest increase on record, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) reported Wednesday.

There were 20.62 million formal jobs at the end of December, a 4.3% annual increase. The figure is slightly higher than the number of formal jobs before the beginning of the pandemic, IMSS said in a statement.

About 1.2 million formal jobs were lost between March and July 2020 due to the pandemic and associated restrictions, but there was a net gain of about 270,000 positions in the final five months of that year.

The institute said the sectors with the biggest increases in terms of the number of people they employ were transport and communications, up 11%; mining, up 8.1%; and construction, up 7%.

The number of people in formal positions increased by more than 12% in each of Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur, making those states the national leaders for job creation.

IMSS also reported that the average base salary in the formal sector rose 7.5% annually to 438.6 pesos (US $21) per day at the end of last year. It was the second highest end-of-year increase in the past decade, it said.

The number of employers registered with IMSS increased 5.3% last year to 1.05 million, meaning that they employ about 20 people each on average. Tens of millions of Mexicans work in the country’s vast informal economy, which was also hit hard by the pandemic.

While it doesn’t give a complete picture of the employment situation in Mexico, the IMSS data does provide additional evidence that the economy recovered strongly last year after recording its biggest contraction in 90 years in 2020.

GDP increased 6.4% in the first nine months of last year compared to the same period a year earlier. Data on the economy’s performance in the last quarter of 2021 has not yet been published.

Mexico News Daily