The migratory birds from Canada live each year on the Michoacán side of Lake Chapala from October to April. Por un Cojumatlán LIbre y Digno/Facebook
Thousands of pelicans migrate from Canada to an island in Michoacán each year, attracted by the warmer weather and the generosity of the locals.
Petatán Island on Lake Chapala, 250 kilometers west of Morelia, plays host to as many as 20,000 American white pelicans for six months every year from October to April.
The town’s citizens have made their winged visitors feel welcome: they offer food to the birds and consider them a good omen, hoping that they’ll attract tourism to the area.
Locals say the migration phenomenon is almost identical to that of the monarch butterflies in eastern Michoacán. The huge birds can measure up to 1.75 meters in length and have a wingspan up to three meters wide.
The mayor of nearby Cojumatlán de Régules, Ana Manso, said she wanted the pelicans to enjoy the same fame as the monarch butterflies.
Feeding time. Adriana Hernández/Twitter
“We want the pelican phenomenon to be known at the state level, at the national level and at the world level because wherever you go, everyone knows the phenomenon of the monarch butterfly, but the pelicans are a bit forgotten,” she said.
However, Manso added that the birds were already a pull for visitors from nearby towns, helping to fill restaurants and boat tours over Lake Chapala to see them up close.
That economic benefit goes some way to explaining the generosity of local people. Petatán is a fishing community so the fish offal is served to the pelicans during the season, Manso said.
A local man who fillets fish, Enrique Martínez, estimated that one to two tonnes of fish offal were fed to the feathered visitors on a daily basis.
Martínez confirmed that the pelicans were welcome and that tourists would be given the same warm reception. “It doesn’t affect us at all, we like to have them [the pelicans] here … we want people to come and see them …” he said.
American white pelicans have the second largest average wingspan of any North American bird, after the California condor, which allows them to easily migrate. Their name in Spanish, pelícano borregón, takes the augmentative form of the word for sheep — borrego —due to their thick white plumage.
News report from earlier this month showing the pelicans in Petatán.
Diageo's Casamigos tequila: 'It’s not just shots and margaritas as it used to be many years ago.'
Tequila could become the United States’ best-selling liquor in the coming years if the strong sales growth it recorded in 2021 continues.
Data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (Discus) shows that tequila and mezcal sales increased 30.1% last year to US $5.2 billion. All but 2% of that revenue came from tequila sales.
The agave-based spirits category was the second highest selling category after vodka, sales of which increased by a more modest 4.9% to $7.3 billion. Vodka has been the United States’ favorite liquor since the 1970s.
The tequila/mezcal category was also the second fastest growing spirit category after premixed cocktails, which recorded growth of 42.3% to total sales of $1.6 billion.
Discus spokeswoman Christine LoCascio said that premium tequilas are contributing to the strong growth of agave-based spirits in the United States.
“It’s not just for margaritas,” she said at the trade association’s annual economic briefing last week.
“There are so many high-end tequilas that you can sip and savor like many other high-end products, like whiskeys and cognacs and bourbons and high-end rums as well.”
The CEO of multinational beverage firm Diageo, whose brand portfolio includes Don Julio and Casamigos tequilas, made similar remarks during a recent earnings call.
“The category’s appeal across demographics is significant,” Ivan Menezes said.
“It has crossed over. The multicultural growth is very strong. It cuts across age segments, it cuts across gender. … It’s not just shots and margaritas as it used to be many years ago,” he said.
Menezes predicted that tequila sales will grow more quickly than the spirits sector as a whole during the next five to 10 years.
Diageo’s tequila sales increased 56% in the last three months of 2021 compared to the same period a year earlier.
LoCascio said that mezcal sales are also growing but noted that the spirit – made with any type of maguey – is “still a very small portion” of the broader agave category it shares with tequila, made exclusively from blue agave.
López-Gatell is accused of mismanaging the crisis.
President López Obrador has described a criminal complaint against Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell for alleged mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic as “irrational” and full of hate.
A group of relatives of people who lost their lives to COVID-19 filed a complaint against the coronavirus czar for alleged omissions in relation to the management of the coronavirus crisis.
A judge last month ordered the federal Attorney General’s Office to investigate López-Gatell to establish his responsibility for Mexico’s high COVID-19 death toll, which is currently just under 310,000.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Tuesday, López Obrador said that blaming the deputy minister for COVID deaths was “very irrational and involves a lot of hate.”
“We all know that it’s a pandemic. We’ve done everything to save lives. … We’re among the 10 countries with the most vaccines acquired and administered,” he said.
“… We were one of the first countries in the world to inform almost daily … about the pandemic,” López Obrador said, referring to the nightly press conferences led by López-Gatell for over a year.
“… I spoke with the president of Russia, the president of China, the president of the United States, the president of Cuba, the president of Argentina, we spoke with the foreign minister of India, with everyone, so that we didn’t lack vaccines,” he said.
López Obrador also said that Mexico – which ranks fifth in the world for total COVID-19 deaths behind the United States, Brazil, India and Russia – has recorded fewer per-capita fatalities than the U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Paraguay.
“So [accusing López-Gatell of mismanagement] … is a great injustice, a smear campaign. …What will the Attorney General’s Office or a judge do? And it’s not just Dr. Hugo [managing the pandemic], it’s the president, it’s the health minister [Jorge Alcocer]. We would all go to jail, we’re all Hugo. But everything has to do with politicking,” López Obrador said.
The president also defended López-Gatell late last month, saying that his work during the pandemic had been “exceptional.”
“He’s a professional of the first order. It’s good fortune that we have a professional with so much knowledge in such difficult circumstances as these. He’s one of the best pandemic specialists in the world. He’s an authority [on the subject], a decent, honest person, an authentic public servant,” López Obrador said January 27.
The almost finished Copper Canyon Airport in Creel, Chihuahua. Government of Chihuahua.
An airport in Chihuahua is nearing completion after a 12-year delay.
The Aeropuerto Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon Airport) in Creel, about 260 kilometers southwest of Chihuahua city, began construction in 2010 and was halted after progressing only about 5% due to legal action by indigenous communities.
However, the conflict has been resolved after the communities reached an agreement with state authorities, state Interior Minister César Jáuregui said.
The airport should be finished by April and could then open for operations by the end of December, according to Innovation and Economic Development Minister María Angélica Granados.
“The construction is being resumed … the airport is already being finished, but the control tower seems to need some work … it could even take the whole year for it to be in shape to operate at 100% … we are expecting the airport to start operating at the end of December or at the beginning of January 2023,” she said.
Innovation and Economic Development Minister María Angélica Granados.
Granados added that the legal impediment was resolved with communal landowners shortly after Governor María Eugenia Campos took office in September and described the initiatives that helped assuage the communities.
“We are working with the communities and the state government through the Innovation Ministry, the Rural Development Ministry and other ministries that have various programs to offer these communities, such as productive projects, soft loans, training and other initiatives. They can help not only the economic development in those communities but also contribute to the airport and expand tourism in the area,” she said.
The airport will be operated by the government of Chihuahua through a federal concession, but that responsibility could go to a third party. Granados said that 11 companies had expressed an interest in operating the terminal.
The former head of the Innovation and Economic Development Ministry, Antonio Fernández Domínguez, said in August that the airport would transport 80,000 passengers per year in the first five years of operation, which could grow to 250,000 passengers per year.
He added that the airport could operate flights to Monterrey, Nuevo León; Torreón, Coahuila; Juárez and Chihuahua city, as well as a tourist route from Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.
Fernández said at the time that a 2014 legal demand from the town of Repechique, obliging the Chihuahua government to pay them 65 million pesos (US $4.9 million in 2014) had been resolved, but it is unclear whether this was the demand that Jáuregui and Granados were referring to.
The community has been locked in battles over access to the fund for years, the newspaper Sin Embargo reported in a 2020 article about the murder of indigenous activist Antonio Montes Enríquez. Montes was a central figure in protesting the airport and had been planning a protest at the site over the issue when he was killed, the community’s legal representative Mónica Gretel Ruiz Anchondo told Sin Embargo.
Creel is in the Tarahumara Sierra, an area largely populated by the Rarámuri people. The town was historically dependent on logging but now has a mining industry and is a Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town) and tourist destination.
US Ambassador Salazar, second from left, at the La Toba solar energy project in Comondú, Baja California Sur.
The United States has once again criticized the federal government’s proposed electricity reform, warning that the continued use of fossil fuels will hurt both consumers and the economy.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico published a statement Tuesday that noted that the U.S. government has repeatedly expressed concern about the energy sector proposal, which would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the fossil fuel-dependent, state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and thus limit the participation of private renewable firms.
“Promoting the use of dirtier, outdated and more expensive technologies over efficient renewable alternatives would place both consumers and the economy in general at a disadvantage,” said the statement, published on the eve of U.S. climate czar John Kerry’s meeting with President López Obrador.
“We will listen to the points of view of the Mexican government on a range of energy issues, while we consult with United States private sector companies in order to better understand how to achieve our energy and climate objectives.”
The statement, which summarized Ambassador Ken Salazar’s visit to Baja California Sur on Monday and Tuesday, also said that “Mexico has abundant wind, sun, water resources, geothermal energy and essential minerals that provide big opportunities to lead the clean energy revolution.”
“… By partnering with the United States and Canada to design green energy technologies, and offering clean, accessible and reliable energy that companies increasingly need, North America can become the world’s clean energy power,” it said.
The statement quoted Ambassador Salazar, who has come under fire in recent days after contradicting the Biden administration by saying last week that López Obrador is “right” to seek energy sector reform.
“As the solar and wind facilities that we visited in Baja California Sur show, we can achieve incredible results by deploying the most recent technologies to advance to energy transition needed to combat climate change,” he said.
Ana López Mestre, general director of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham), also raised concerns about the government’s plans at an “open parliament” forum on Tuesday, warning the reform would jeopardize investor confidence, the transition to clean energy and the operation of North American supply chains.
Although López Obrador has championed the continued use of fossil fuels, he said Tuesday that Mexico would ramp up its clean energy production if the United States supports the endeavor by providing low-interest loans.
AmCham director Ana López warned the reform would sow distrust among investors.
“… It’s a matter of reaching agreements with the United States government,” the president said.
“… Receiving low-interest loans … would be an injection in favor of the environment. The only thing we want to do is strengthen the CFE because it dispatches energy to domestic consumers and guarantees that prices don’t go up excessively,” he said.
López Obrador, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard and other federal officials will meet Wednesday with Kerry, the United States special presidential envoy for climate, who is in Mexico for the second time in less than four months.
A statement issued by the U.S. Department of State Monday said he would “engage with government counterparts and accelerate cooperation on the climate crisis.”
Any loans provided by the United States could be used to fund the modernization of CFE’s aging hydroelectricity plants.
López Obrador said Wednesday that the United States’ funding of anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) would also be a topic for discussion in his meeting Wednesday with Salazar.
“… Today when I see the ambassador I’m going to remind him to tell us why the United States government gives money to [businessman] Claudio X.González’s group,” he said.
The federal government sent a diplomatic note to the United States last May, asking it to explain why it has provided funding to MCCI, a civil society organization that has been critical of López Obrador and his administration.
AMLO has complained about not receiving a response, although the U.S. government published a memorandum last June that outlined its commitment to tackling corruption and its intention to increase support to international partners committed to its elimination.
During a meeting with López Obrador the same month, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly asked him to not interfere in the work of NGOs such as MCCI and press freedom advocacy organization Article 19, both of which have drawn the president’s ire.
At his Wednesday morning press conference, López Obrador railed against MCCI president Maria Amparo Casar and journalist Carmen Aristegui, who he recently accused of misleading people during her long media career.
He accused Amparo of defamation and labeled Aristegui “dishonest.”
“[There are] dishonest journalists like Carmen Aristegui, journalists who are not just dishonest but also corrupt and mercenary, capable of inventing any situation, like [Carlos] Loret de Mola,” he said.
MCCI and Loret de Mola recently collaborated on an investigation into the living arrangements in the United States of AMLO’s 40-year-old son. Their exposé contrasted the luxury in which José Ramón López Beltrán apparently lives with his father’s exhortations for people to live a life of austerity.
Tour participant Manoj Shrestha gets a whiff of sustainably grown coffee at Cafe Nueva Maravilla.
“We’ve won empty space and made paths for walking,” says Jorge Cravioto as he eyes the ever-encroaching forest that surrounds him.
It’s a delicate balance: protecting the fast-growing bamboo, the year-round crickets and the nesting ground of dozens of tropical birds while building a coffee plantation and hotel for visitors.
His project, Finca Brasil, is tucked into the mountains of southeastern Chiapas, right along the Guatemalan border, and while the coffee business here is ancient tradition, this plantation has a futuristic vision for the region’s coffee industry.
Finca Brasil has become a standout example of local coffee farming because of Cravioto and his wife Magda’s commitment to agroforestry, a system of production that harmoniously incorporates cash crops — in their case, coffee — into the surrounding natural landscape. As part of that production system, they grow other flora that they can sell for a profit – things like fruit trees or hardwood trees to be sold for lumber. The system has a lot of benefits, everything from increasing biodiversity to reducing the risk of erosion, and it stands in opposition to conventional commercial coffee production, where land is cleared so coffee bushes can be planted in direct sunlight.
“The main product of this region is coffee,” Cravioto says, “but the price of coffee is suddenly high and then super low, and it’s never enough for the families to live on,” says Carvioto. “The model of Finca Brasil is to grow coffee but also to grow other things.”
Elías Morales shows the organic compost around his trees that he grows to diversify the soil and prevent erosion.
However, he quickly adds, “If all I wanted from the coffee was money, I would plant in the direct sun like everyone else.”
Instead, he insists, he and Magda see Finca Brasil as a long-term project that will allow them to make their own small contribution to the future of the planet.
“We need to agree that climate change is real,” he says. “If we don’t protect these spaces, what will we leave for future generations?”
The Craviotos are just one pair of producers in a 20-member coffee collective in Sierra Mariscal, a seven-municipality coffee-growing region on Chiapas’ southernmost border.
Working together, the collective members are developing and promoting a gourmet coffee route here, one that will bring outsiders in to taste the beans, experience the land, and hopefully buy directly from producers.
Finca Brasil, because of its facilities – their coffee-growing land encircles a rustic eight-room hotel and colorful gardens – has been chosen as one of the bases for exploring this new coffee route.
But if Finca Brasil demonstrates the first step in excellent coffee – growing and harvesting sustainably – Cafe Nueva Maravilla, run by Elías Morales and his wife Wendy, showcases the next.
“My father was a coffee producer, and from the time I was very young, I was involved in production,” says Morales, a quiet man with an easy smile. He opened Nueva Maravilla with his wife a year ago in order to spotlight the area’s highest quality coffee from a wide range of altitudes. He started toasting his own beans 10 years ago and now works with his neighbors to toast theirs.
“[The] habit we had before — me as well — was that you grow the coffee and you sell all of it that’s good and you’re left with the bad. We don’t do that now; we are drinking good coffee and trying to teach people about drinking good coffee.”
Instead of selling all their best coffee to intermediaries, they are now saving some of it, not only for their own consumption but also to sell in their cafe and to offer to visitors that find their way to this 600-person community in the Chiapas mountains. The hope is to develop direct contact with buyers, which they hope will translate into higher prices for the producers – who would make pennies on the dollar using the intermediaries.
“Someone can come and say, ‘I want this coffee from 1,200 meters … I want this one from 1,400 …’,” Morales says. “People say that high-altitude coffees are very acidic, but we can always do a combination of the beans: one that’s 1,600 meters with another that’s 1,000 meters. So in the end, it’s not too acidic, nor is it too mellow.”
He’s been learning this precision alchemy as the collective has worked to produce select coffee – using the term to describe a kind of coffee where everything from the planting of the seeds to the pouring of the finished product has been cared for.
Members produce coffee where everything from the planting of the seeds to the pouring of the brew has been cared for.
“Now I can grab a handful of beans and just by smelling them determine how the final cup will be,” Morales says proudly.
Like Finca Brasil, he is also using agroforestry techniques and has noticed the difference.
“When the hurricanes passed through, people who had been cutting down their trees suffered a lot of damage [to their crop], but we were fine because the trees helped to keep the roots in the ground,” he says.
Samuel Mendoza, another collective member, runs through a list of characteristics that can be used to describe a specific brew. Mendoza has become an official coffee taster, a skill as complex as being a sommelier or tequilier.
He walks a group of visitors through an extensive but down-to-earth tasting at Cafe Nueva Maravilla, showing them how to gently scoop the grinds that settle on the surface of the coffee, how to slurp from their spoons to disperse its taste throughout and what changes they will notice as the coffee cools from its original 198 F – the officially agreed upon correct temperature for coffee tasting.
“The specialty coffee sector is very rigid in terms of price and sustainability,” says Mendoza, “We want to create added value in order to increase the prices we can get for our coffee. We want to build more cafes like this one, develop the region’s coffee route, and make our coffee more visible.”
Remote and isolated, the coffee communities of Sierra Mariscal are not easy destinations for the average traveler. Mendoza and his business partner have been integral to bringing visitors to experience the coffee route via their local tour company, Travis Tours. They are also working with local authorities to improve roads and encourage investment in tourism infrastructure.
While there is still a long way to go, the collective members have already implemented important new techniques into their coffee production and are learning to value in a new way the product that their families have grown for generations.
“Some say that the best coffee is high-altitude coffee, but the best coffee is one that is cared for from the very beginning to the very end,” says Cravioto.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
A film by a Mexican director is competing on four fronts at this year’s Academy Awards.
Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley was nominated for best picture, best cinematography, best costume design and best production design.
The 150-minute psychological thriller tells the story of a carnival worker who takes a big risk to boost his career.
It is based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham and stars Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett.
Critics gave the movie an 80% approval on ratings site Rotten Tomatoes, while 68% of public reviewers offered it the thumbs up.
NIGHTMARE ALLEY | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures
Del Toro, a Guadalajara native, won best director for his 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth and best picture for 2017’s The Shape of Water.
However, he isn’t the only Mexican with a stake in this year’s awards: CODA, a film starring Eugenio Derbez, is nominated for best picture and best adapted screenplay and Carlos López Estrada’s Raya And The Last Dragon is up for best animated feature film.
The film that gained most nominations this year was Power of the Dog, with 12, while Dune received 10 and Belfast and West Side Story were both given seven nominations.
The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.
Cold-water swimmer Angélica Cuapio at the Stockholm Winterswim Open.
A Mexican woman who found that icy water was an effective treatment for her long COVID symptoms won two medals at the 2022 edition of the Swedish winter swimming championships.
Originally from Mexico City, Angélica Cuapio is an immunology researcher at the Karolinska Institute, a medical university in Solna, part of the urban area of the Swedish capital Stockholm.
She was the only Mexican to compete at the Stockholm Winterswim Open – held last Saturday in a lake where ice is cracked to create a swimming course – and placed first in her age category for the 25 meters freestyle, third in the 25 meters breaststroke and fourth in the 4 x 25 meters breaststroke relay.
Water temperature in the lake was 1.9 C.
“… I won first place in the 40 to 44 years category,” Cuapio told the newspaper El Universal in an interview.
Cuapio contracted COVID-19 twice.
She also set a new record for the 25m crawl, finishing in just under 20 seconds.
“I competed because I’m a survivor of the pandemic. I had COVID-19 twice. The most recent time was so severe that I was taken to the emergency department twice,” the scientist said.
She told El Universal that she swims to commemorate those who have died during the pandemic but also to shine a spotlight on those who are living with the effects of long COVID, in which symptoms remain for weeks, months or even longer after the initial infection and illness.
“[I want to] make the existence of these consequences visible, and the important thing is to conduct scientific research about this,” Cuapio said.
“I’m happy with my win and I want to resonate with everyone who has long COVID. This medal and certificate are for all the people who haven’t recovered yet. I want to make it known that long COVID exists, … more research has to be done to find treatments for … this disease,” she said.
Cuapio explained that she suffered extreme fatigue, hair loss, shortness of breath and low spirits, among other symptoms, after her second bout of COVID.
“My medical consultations didn’t find any measurable alteration so the diagnosis was long COVID. As a hobby I started submerging myself in cold water at the end of summer last year and as I kept doing it I noticed that my symptoms began decreasing and some disappeared completely,” she said.
“This hobby became a therapeutic thing, … its impact was so great that I encouraged myself to participate in this competition,” said Cuapio, a graduate of the National Autonomous University Faculty of Medicine who completed postgraduate studies in Europe.
“[Competing] is a great achievement after having the virus twice. I’m grateful … because I feel completely recovered. My triumph is a tribute to the survivors, those who have so-called long COVID, but also to those who didn’t survive in Mexico and the world.”
The researcher has collected anecdotal evidence that hundreds of other people around the world have found cryotherapy, or cold therapy, to be an effect treatment for the symptoms of long COVID.
“[For] some people who had COVID and who continued to have some symptoms, this [treatment] has helped them a lot,” Cuapio said.
Donovan Carrillo flew into the final round of the Olympics men's individual figure skating competition on Tuesday. He's the first Mexican to do so. Los Juegos Olímpicos Twitter
A Mexican figure skater has made history by reaching the finals at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, becoming the first Mexican skater ever to reach the last round at the international competition of the world’s best athletes.
Donovan Carrillo, 22, will join 23 other skaters in the free skate program on Thursday — Wednesday night in North America — despite having spent his life training in Mexico without an ice rink suitable for high-performance athletes.
Medals in the individual figure skating competition are determined by combining the scores achieved in the short program and the free skate program.
Carrillo finished in 19th place in the short program on Tuesday with a personal record score of 79.69 and thus qualified for the free skate program, also known as the long program. It is something none of his compatriots had ever before achieved.
It has been far from plain sailing for the Guadalajara native, who grew up training on ice rinks in shopping malls. At age 12, he moved with his coach to León, Guanajuato, but was still without a professional rink to practice on.
Carrillo performed in an outfit provided free by Guadalajara designer Edgar Lozano, who used more than 17,000 crystals to make it. Los Juegos Olímpicos Twitter
His family sought sponsors but were rejected. In the end he was supported by friends and relatives, enabling him to travel to Europe to compete.
“Kisses to my family and to all Mexico, dreams really do come true,” he said after the routine.
“One of my first emotions when I finished the short program is that I didn’t want it to end. It was a very special moment, and I was enjoying to the fullest what I love most in life, which is skating … I’m very motivated to give my best in the long program,” Carrillo added.
The figure skater promoted Mexican culture in his performance: the rock ballad Black Magic Woman by Mexican American Carlos Santana, an artist whose music his father played to him as a child, accompanied his acrobatic routine. In the past, he has performed to the music of national treasure Juan Gabriel.
His eye-catching gold and black costume, composed of more than 17,000 crystals, was also of Mexican origin. It was designed by Édgar Lozano, also from Guadalajara, who crafted costumes for Miss Universe 2020, Andrea Meza.
Only three Mexicans have competed in figure skating at the Olympic Games: Ricardo Olavarrieta in 1988 and 1992, Diana Evans in 1988 and Mayda Navarro in 1992.
Donovan Carrillo programa corto | Patinaje Artístico Beijing 2022
Donovan Carrillo’s short program performance, skating to the music of Santana.
Construction was one of the sectors that saw the highest growth. deposit photos
The total number of formal sector jobs in Mexico rose by more than 900,000 in the 12-month period to January 31, the biggest increase on record, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) reported Monday.
Just over 20.76 million workers were registered with IMSS at the end of last month, an increase of 940,768 compared to the end of January 2021.
IMSS said that 86.7% of workers were in permanent positions and the remainder were employed in temporary jobs.
The number of formal sector positions was 142,271 higher than at the end of December. IMSS said it was the biggest December to January increase on record.
It reported that the sectors with the highest annual growth were transport and communications, up 11.3%; construction, up 7.6%; and mining, up 7.3%.
Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Baja California Sur recorded the biggest annual increase in formal sector jobs. Employment growth in all three states was above 14%, IMSS said. Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur are heavily dependent on tourism, which began to recover last year after a sharp pandemic-induced downturn in 2020.
IMSS also reported that the average base salary of formal sector workers was $466 pesos (US $22.60) per day at the end of last month. The annual increase was 8.9%, the highest January to January jobs jump of the past decade.
Meanwhile, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that 72% of jobs recovered after the initial lockdown period at the start of the pandemic in 2020 were in the informal sector. The ILO considered data from the middle of 2020 to the third quarter of 2021.
The percentage is higher than several other countries in the region, including Costa Rica, Brazil and Chile.
“Informality is endemic in this region and can be considered a ‘social comorbidity’ in this pandemic,” the ILO said in the executive summary of its 2021 labor overview report for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“In 2019, one in two employed persons was working under informal conditions. At the beginning of the crisis, the informality rate dropped due to the enormous loss of this type of jobs; however, most of the jobs recovered since then have been under informal conditions.”
| Patinaje Artístico Beijing 2022
