• LIVELIHOOD: More than 12.5 million Mexicans lost their employment in April as the coronavirus crisis settled in, a survey conducted by Mexico’s statistics agency (INEGI) revealed. The majority of employment losses (10.3 million) occurred in the country’s vast informal economy.
• MASSIVE: Given that so many people left work, the size of Mexico’s labor force fell sharply from 57.4 to 45.4 million. Only a handful of Mexican states offer some form of unemployment insurance and the Mexican government presented one of the weakest relief programs around the world.
• DETERIORATION: “The hefty decline in the labor force and the higher relative share of job losses in the informal sector, which..consists of a more vulnerable group of the population, are very indicative of the heavy deterioration in labor market conditions”, analysts at Grupo Banorte said Monday.
• LOCKDOWN: As Mexico begins its phased-in reopening in June, the INEGI survey represents the first gauge to measure the wide effects of the lockdown measures that began in late March to slow down the coronavirus pandemic. Mexico has 10,177 coronavirus deaths now.
