Unemployment rate affects highly educated Mexicans

People with education higher than middle school have more obstacles to enter the work market because the offer requires fewer skills , that is, they are overqualified .

In Mexico, the unemployed population ascended to 2 million people in the second trimester of the year, the highest number since the third semester of 2016 , according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

Out of all the unemployed in the country, 47% (945,312) have studied high school or university .

“Most of the sources of employment that are being generated in the country do not require specialized knowledge or even work experience prior to its development, causing the population with higher education difficulties to find a job where they can exploit their knowledge ,” explained Héctor Magaña , teacher of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education campus State of Mexico.

Out of the unemployed with higher education in the country, 58% are men (546,320), and 42% (398,824) are women .

The states with the highest number of educated people who are unemployed are Puebla (62%), Quintana Roo (60%), Guerrero and Chiapas (58% each), Mexico City (57%), Veracruz (55%), and Campeche and Sinaloa (54% each).

Highly educated Mexicans face harsh unemployment rate

The problem of being overqualified also causes many of these persons to accept jobs that pay less compared to their academic and technical skills , said Héctor Magaña.

“This causes the underemployment rate to be almost as twice as the unemployment rate , that is, people that already have a source of employment have to look for an additional source to live since they don’t have enough income to satisfy their needs,” added the specialist, who is also coordinator of the E conomy Research Center (CIEN).

With data adjusted to seasonality, the unemployment rate was 3.5% of the economically active population during the second trimester of the year, similar to the figure reported in the immediately previous period.

The underemployment rate was 7.6% of the working population, which means an increase of 0.6 percentual points during the period of April-June 2019 compared to the previous trimester, which puts it at the highest level since the third trimester of 2016 .

In Magaña’s opinion, this is a complicated problem that has intensified in the last trimesters due to economic stagnation , causing the industries that generate more employment, like manufacturing and construction, to create fewer sources of employment , which in turn causes more competition for the existing positions, reducing the payment capacity.

57.6%

of the employed population in the third semester of 2019 (31.7 million workers) had a monthly income of MXN $6,160. This is also due to more than half of the employed population of the country (56.6%) working in informality , with low wages , without access to healthcare and law benefits.

High unemployment levels among educated women

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