President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) acknowledged on Saturday that “a good increase” in Mexico’s minimum wage is required due to high inflation in the country.
“Of course, the labor leaders are going to agree with us that the minimum wage must be increased in a significant proportion because we are facing international inflation,” he said.
From Toluca, the Mexican president said that the pandemic is gone, but he emphasized that now the world is facing inflation generated by Russia’s war with Ukraine.
At the end of October, inflation in Mexico stood at 8.41 percent, a drop from the 8.7 percent officially reported in September.
“That’s why we need a good salary increase because we have inflation of 8.4 percent,” he said.
AMLO also revealed that the agreement on the salary increase for 2023 is pending and he hopes that employers accept the Mexican government’s increase proposal, without advancing the proposed increase percentage.
In Mexico, the increase in the minimum wage is defined by the National Minimum Wage Commission, which is made up of three parties: the private sector, the Government and the unions that represent Mexican workers.
“Now we are about to reach an agreement to reconcile the increase for next year, and I hope that the businessmen accept it,” he commented.
The Mexican president recalled that the general minimum wage that a Mexican worker receives for a working day has steadily increased since 2019, benefiting workers with a salary increase equivalent to 62 percent, “as had not happened in more than 30 years.”
In addition, he presumed that the wage increase in municipalities along the northern border strip of the country has doubled.
López Obrador also pointed out that the minimum wage has lost 70 percent of its purchasing power in the last three decades.
“It is embarrassing to say it because, even with the 62% (increase) that has never been seen before, the minimum wage in Mexico is still lower than in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras,” he lamented.
For its part, the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex), which represents more than 36,000 companies and contributes 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), has revealed that they will seek a 15 percent wage increase, in order to not to impact inflation and the levels of informality in the country, where 6 out of 10 Mexicans work informally and without social security.
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