With one million, Puebla is the fourth state in the country with the highest number of “opportunity youth,” meaning people between the ages of 15 and 29 who neither study nor work, or who, if they do, have precarious employment, meaning they lack social security or other legal benefits, and their salaries are low.
This number is equivalent to 64 percent of the state’s inhabitants who are in this age range. This proportion is also the fourth highest of the 32 states, according to the “2024 Opportunity Youth Report” by the civil society YouthBuild México.
Similarly, Puebla is among the top three for young people working in precarious conditions, with 517,000. Only the State of Mexico and Veracruz are ahead, with 1.04 million and 645,000, respectively.
This means that 32 percent of the young population living in Puebla has precarious work, the same proportion recorded in Chiapas and Oaxaca.
The analysis, based on the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), prepared by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), adds that of young people working in the state of Puebla, 210,529 work more than the 48-hour maximum established by the Federal Labor Law.
Nationwide, 3.9 million people between the ages of 15 and 29 work excessive hours, of which 71 percent are men and 29 percent are women.
This practice is exacerbated when they lack higher education or do not attend classes at an educational institution.
“Young people who face precarious employment conditions such as insufficient income, lack of social security, lack of stable contracts, underemployment, and excessive working hours find themselves in a situation that violates their right to decent work… This not only underscores the importance of education as a tool to improve working conditions, but also highlights the urgency of addressing the education deficit to reduce the inequality gap in the workplace,” YouthBuild emphasizes.
The report adds that in the state of Puebla, 54 percent of young people lack higher education.
In this state and the rest of the country, the lack of educational infrastructure in the regions, the limited number of places in public universities, and the high costs of studying are some of the factors that make it difficult to remain in the education system.
“There is a direct correlation between the educational level attained and the economic income of young people, which reflects that the lower the educational level, the lower the chances of accessing decent jobs. Both dropping out of school and the difficulty in accessing higher education have a lasting impact on the life trajectory of thousands of young people in the country… There are no effective educational policies for returning to school,” the report states.
Furthermore, it is estimated that there are 4.8 million young people in Mexico who are disconnected from work and formal education.
The states with the highest proportion of young people not working or studying, relative to their total population aged 15 to 29, are Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Veracruz, with 28, 24, and 21 percent, respectively.
In the case of Puebla, it is 17 percent, the same as in Coahuila, Tlaxcala, and Morelos, according to YouthBuild.
The civil association emphasizes that poverty is the first barrier threatening “opportunity youth” access to decent jobs, as it fosters the accumulation of disadvantages and structural barriers from birth.
Poverty, the civil association adds, affects more than a third of the youth population between the ages of 15 and 29 in the country. It highlights that 19 percent of women in this age group are dedicated to providing care in the home.
In the 12-29 age group, the most prevalent social need is access to social security, as 58 percent lack it.
Source: lajornadadeoriente
