La Jornada: Record generation of jobs in March: Sheinbaum

In the comparison of the first quarter of 2026 against the same period last year, there are 422 thousand more people who identified themselves as having a job, stated yesterday the heads of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), Marath Baruch Bolaños, and the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo.

As part of a report on labor dynamics presented during the morning press conference at the National Palace, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo summarized: “422 thousand more jobs between January-March 2025 and January-March 2026. March 2026, the March with the highest number of formal jobs in history.”

The president highlighted that in March there was also a positive trade balance and noted that “one of the objectives of Plan Mexico is to import less and produce more for domestic consumption and for export.”

The head of the STPS returned to data from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), which includes formal and informal employment and shows that in March there were 60.2 million employed people in the country.

Affiliated with the IMSS, 22.7 million workers

The Day published on Monday that, according to the ENOE, between January and March 2026 the employed population decreased by 227,155 people. Asked about this statistic, President Sheinbaum Pardo related this reduction to the measures imposed by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, which impact the steel and automotive sectors.

A comparison of the first quarters of 2025 and 2026 shows that “Mexico registers one of the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD, 2.4 percent” (at the end of January it was 2.7 percent), Bolaños said.

For her part, Zoé Robledo indicated that at the end of March, 207,604 formal jobs had been created, and in one year, 259,570 new jobs were generated. At the most recent cut, the IMSS had 22 million 724 thousand 680 affiliated workers registered.