Hello, today I would like to talk about the current labor situation and recruitment strategies in Mexico.
What is your impression of hiring in Mexico?
In recent years, Mexico’s inflation rate has been increasing by approximately 4-7% annually, and in areas with a high foreign population (safe areas), rent has also been rising. Many foreign-affiliated companies have recently revised their salary scales and are making efforts to secure talented employees.
For companies facing challenges in recruitment, we will share various strategies that companies are implementing to win the talented good employees in recruitment competition in Mexico, where the minimum wage continues to rise.
1. Enhance non-mandatory benefits.
2. Implement remote work.
3. Advance localization.
We will explain each point in order.
①Enhance non-mandatory benefits.
In Mexico, the basic statutory benefits include social insurance, housing savings funds, and pensions. In addition, there are paid vacation bonuses, PTU, and Christmas bonuses.
What other benefits do companies provide in addition to statutory benefits?
Benefits are a key factor that job seekers in Mexico always check, so offering attractive benefits can help attract candidates.
Specific examples include:
• High-cost medical insurance (including employees’ families)
• Food vouchers, gasoline subsidies
• Rent subsidies (though rare, some companies do offer this)
• Attendance bonuses
• Position-based allowances
• Language proficiency allowances
• Productivity bonuses
• Improvement bonuses
• Sales incentives
Would your company consider implementing such benefits?
②Implementing remote work
Regarding this, the concept of home offices temporarily became mainstream in Mexico around 2021 due to the pandemic. Recently, many companies have adopted a hybrid model, but in my impression, many Japanese companies have returned to a daily office attendance system. Of course, home offices have drawbacks such as difficulty in managing attendance.
Even if daily remote work is not permitted, allowing 2-3 days of remote work per week can significantly improve the situation where people are not coming to the office. There are also issues regarding how to manage this, but changing the work system in this way can make it possible to include Mexicans who prefer home offices or those who dislike daily commuting as potential candidates during recruitment, making it one of the options to consider.
③Advancing localization.
To put it simply, when hiring staff or supervisors, stop requiring English proficiency as a condition.
In Mexico, there is high demand for English-speaking talent, and hiring such individuals typically requires paying 1.2 to 1.5 times the salary of those who only speak Spanish. Since the proportion of Mexicans who speak English fluently is relatively low overall, this strategy aims to expand the pool of potential candidates (by including those who only speak Spanish) to make hiring easier.
Many foreign companies naturally include English proficiency as a requirement, and the ability to speak English is often highly valued during the hiring process. In this strategy, it is important to create an environment where newly hired employees who only speak Spanish can work without issues by advancing localization. The ideal localization scenario would be to appoint English-speaking Mexicans as managers and have other employees who only speak Spanish.Some companies may already be implementing this approach, where only managers who can speak English communicate with foreigners, and all reports from other employees are relayed through managers. We understand that some may find it challenging to train managers, so we can provide support in this area as well.
We also offer advice on other HR-related issues that Japanese companies may encounter, so please feel free to contact us for more information.
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