The Day at a Glance | May 29 2023

El Día en Minutos
29 mayo, 2023, 2 años ago
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*According to data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOA for its initials in Spanish), the number of employed individuals increased by 2.4 million at the end of the first quarter compared to the same period in 2022.

*President of the United States Joe Biden and Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement regarding the budget in order to suspend the current debt ceiling for a year and a half.

*With over 27 million votes in favor, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan succeeded in winning the second round of elections and was elected for a third presidential term.

Economic environment

The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI for its initials in Spanish) published the National Survey of Occupation and Employment´s (ENOA) results for the first quarter of 2023. The document reveals that the Economically Active Population in Mexico reached 60.089 million, which is two million more than a year ago. Furthermore, the number of employed individuals increased at a higher rate – specifically by 2.41 million workers – reaching a total of 58.49 million employees. On the other hand, the number of unemployed individuals decreased by 409,000 to 1.59 million. With this, the unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2023 set at 2.7% as a percentage of the Economically Active Population, which is 0.8 percentage points lower than the reading for the same period in 2022, and a 0.3 percentage point decrease compared to the previous quarter. This data was complemented by the underemployment rate, which set at 7.3% of the employed population, also lower than the 9% recorded a year ago.

After weeks of negotiations, US President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement to suspend the current debit ceiling until January 1, 2025. The agreement would allow the US government to avoid default, although it still needs to be approved by Congress before June 5^th – the date set by the Treasury as the deadline before it runs out of money to meet its financial obligations. Despite this agreement marking a significant breakthrough, it still needs to be approved by a highly divided Congress. The far right´s “Freedom Caucus” is particularly concerning as its members have stated that’s they will try to prevent the agreement from being approved in the House of Representatives vote scheduled to take place on Wednesday.