México: For decent work, education and training

1. The International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) expresses its deep concern about the current employment situation of young people in Mexico. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), nearly half of Generation Z in the country (people aged 15 to 29) is unemployed, with young women facing the greatest impact.
2. Poor economic management, financial irresponsibility, clientelist policies, high levels of corruption, legal uncertainty, and the lack of adequate regulation of disruptive new technologies—such as artificial intelligence—lead to low levels of public and private investment. This results in limited employment opportunities, especially for young people in Mexico.
3. Under the right conditions, public and private investment can increase employment opportunities and open prospects for a dignified life for young people in Mexico.
4. Likewise, persistently low public investment in education caused a 6.6% decline in productivity between 2018 and 2024, according to INEGI, deepening the economic and employment crisis faced by young people. Falling productivity also makes recent positive advances in labour policy—such as the gradual reduction of the weekly working week from 48 to 40 hours—more economically challenging, since Mexico has historically compensated for low productivity with a high volume of hours worked, a strategy that is becoming increasingly unsustainable in the face of these changes and demographic transformations.
5. In this regard, education and training are essential to boost productivity, expand economic opportunities, and guarantee better working conditions.

For these reasons, IUSY urgently calls for:

6. Strengthening the actors responsible for public policy, businesses, trade unions, and educational institutions in order to create conditions for decent and productive work.
7. Establishing mandatory training for key political, economic, and social actors on labour policies, incorporating gender and youth perspectives in employment, from recruitment processes to working conditions and lifelong learning.
8. Serving as a coalition builder that connects political, economic, and social actors who share these values and seek to promote youth employability, decent work, education, and training—for example, by organizing an international youth summit on work and employment in Mexico City.
9. Maintaining an ongoing commitment to observing and monitoring labour and education policies, including legislation, curricula, and mechanisms for cross-sector collaboration.
10. IUSY reaffirms that full economic development cannot exist without decent work, education, and training.