The discussion raised is highly complex and encompasses multiple sectors and occupations of society. As such, it must be addressed in all its dimensions and not be concentrated in a specific sector.
For all these independent workers, last year the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) announced the signing of an agreement with the main mobility and delivery platforms that operate in our country so that drivers and delivery people have access to all the benefits of the regime. mandatory social security through a voluntary scheme in which they retain their autonomy and flexibility.
Now, the central challenge we face goes beyond digital workers and consists of defining the best way to organize access to rights that today only formal workers, both subordinate and independent, have access to. At the end of December 2021, 56.9 million Mexicans do not have access to formal employment, according to the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), which was released by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). These people are engaged in activities ranging from street vendors to domestic workers who still do not have access to the regime to which they are entitled.
Without formal work there is no access to basic satisfactions for a good life. More than half of the employed population in Mexico does not have access to contracts or social security; to medical services, financing for housing or consumption, childcare, retirement savings or sports and leisure services. In the last month of 2021, more than 32 million workers were registered in the informal sector, which represented an increase compared to the same month of 2020.
We need to aspire to universal social security. The challenge for governments and legislators around the world is to allow the new labor schemes, workers and industries that represent the first manifestations of a new economic model to flourish while at the same time strengthening the human rights of those who participate in them and that all , regardless of our employment status, we receive comprehensive protection.