Job creation in Mexico...

The good news is that employment is rising in Mexico.  The bad news is the quality of the jobs being created.  In 2011, the number of workers registered in the IMSS (the Social Security Institute) rose by 591 thousand, 23.9% of the total jobs created in the economy.  The number of people working in the informal economy grew 1.6 million, nearly two-thirds of the total.  The percentage of people working in the informal economy rose to 29.2% in Q4, the highest percentage of any quarter since the statistical series began in 2000.  The seasonally adjusted underemployment rate hit 9.0% in Q4 2011, its third highest level since the statistical series began.  (It was higher only in Q2 2009 when it was 11.0% and in Q1 2010, when it was 0.02 percentage points higher.)  The increase in the number of “underemployed” workers (835 thousand) was 41.3% greater than the number of jobs — permanent and temporary — registered in the IMSS.