Riviera Maya, Q.R. — State officials will begin making accounting rounds to businesses to verify employee wage increases. Numerous complaints of a lack of applied wage increases during the first weeks of the new year set officials on the verification course.
As of today, the State Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STyPS) will begin making their payroll verification rounds to ensure employees are being paid the new minimum wage.
Flor Ruiz Cosio, the State Secretary of Labor, says it is mainly blue collar workers and those in the tourism sector that are effected by the salary increase decreed by the Government of Mexico in late 2023.
She says employers must comply with this obligation. As of February 1, officials will begin the review operation for compliance with the minimum wage adjustment.
Ruiz Cosio explained that all employers had to implement the 20 percent increase from the first half of January, despite this, a month’s extension was given to begin the review operations and compliance by the Federal Government.
“We are going to begin to review compliance with the increase in the minimum wage, however, it must be clarified that this increase is for all those who earn the minimum wage, those who have a higher salary, it is not the employer’s obligation to make said increase,” said Flor Ruiz.
“We were doing the count and we are talking about more than 300,000 workers who will benefit from this increase, plus those who benefit from collective contracts,” she added.
She says that workers may go to the STyPS at any time to report irregularities so that the corresponding inspections can be carried out. If the company does not make the increase effective during the first and second pay periods of January, it will be retroactive.
The minimum wage has increased approximately 300 percent since the beginning of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government. In 2018 the minimum daily salary was 88.36 pesos, in 2019 it increased to 102.68 pesos an d n 2020 to123.22 pesos.
In 2021, minimum wage rose to 141.70 pesos for a eight hour day of labor while in 2022 it increase again to 172.87 pesos. Last year, minimum wage was 207.44 pesos per day and in 2024 at 248.93 pesos. The average male Mexican laborer who is fully employed working 26 out of 30 days a month will will earn 6,472.0 pesos per month or around $387.00 USD per month.
Female laborers earn less. Ruiz Cosio says that earning inequality between men and women has decreased by as much as 75 percent and that work continues to ensure that salaries are equal.
