This morning, Mexican Unemployment for the month of August declined to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.29% versus estimates for a reading of 3.33%. Coming off of July’s 3.35% and a June uptick to 3.4%, we have now seen a continual downtrend in unemployment over the course of the past several years. While this month’s reported data is by no means a record low, Mexico is closing back in on the May low when unemployment sat at its lowest level since May 2006. We are currently sitting right around pre-crisis levels, but are still well above the lows of ~2% from the early 2000s. This positive data comes on the backs of Mexico and the United States working to create a trade agreement to replace NAFTA, but that development is not likely to have an impact on hard data any time soon given the fact that the US and Mexico would have to withdraw from NAFTA for the bilateral agreement to go into effect.
Note: in the graph above, data predating September 2005 is NSA legacy data that Bespoke has seasonally adjusted.
