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Mexico recovers jobs in June, back at 2000 levels
Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:07 PM ET



MEXICO CITY, July 11 (Reuters) - Mexico recovered 47,360 formal jobs in June, returning its employment to the levels of December 2000, when President Vicente Fox took office and before several years of economic stagnation set in.

At the close of June the number of workers covered by Mexico's social security system IMSS, considered a reliable employment indicator, was 12,799,783, up from 12,752,423 at the end of May, the labor ministry said on Monday.

When Fox took office the number of workers enrolled in IMSS was 12,775,125.

Fox had campaigned to create 1 million jobs a year, but Mexico was hit by a slowdown in the economy of its chief trading partner, the United States. Mexico's economy began recovering at the end of 2003 from three years of stagnation, posting growth of 4.4 percent last year.

The numbers released Monday include private sector employees but not those working in the public sector, the informal economy outside the tax base, or farmers.

A large proportion of Mexicans work in the informal economy and analysts say their numbers have grown as the formal job sector has contracted.