During September, unemployment withdrawals from the Retirement Administrators (Afores) rose compared to August, but were below the level they recorded before the National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (Consar) implemented controls to limit the withdrawal flow.
In the ninth month of the year, unemployment withdrawals from the Afores amounted to 2,125.4 million pesos, an increase of 36% compared to the immediately previous month.
However, September’s figure is the second lowest so far in 2024, only above last August, when withdrawals amounted to 1,562.1 million pesos.
In addition, last September 121,541 unemployment withdrawals were made, which meant an increase of 18,696 withdrawals compared to August, but just like the amount, it was the second month with the lowest number of withdrawals so far in 2024.
At the end of July, Consar implemented a validation mechanism in the Afores applications and the Procesar systems (the company that operates the Retirement Savings System database) to allow unemployment withdrawals to be made only with the last salary that the account holder had while he was an active worker.
This is because in previous months, the authority had detected a scheme through which promoters of the Afores registered workers in Social Security for one day and with a salary higher than what they actually had while contributing in order to increase the amount of the withdrawal. for unemployment, this in exchange for a commission for the promoter.
Thanks to this practice, in the first seven months of 2024, unemployment withdrawals reached historic highs. The president of Consar, Julio César Cervantes Parra, declared that the new controls sought a change in the trend of unemployment withdrawal figures.
Unemployment retirement is a right that all workers with an individual retirement savings account can access after being unemployed for at least 46 days.
There are two modalities to make the unemployment withdrawal: modality A is to withdraw 30 days of the last base contribution salary, as long as the amount does not exceed 10 UMAs (33,000 pesos) and modality B, in which the amount withdrawn is whichever is less between 90 days of the last base contribution salary or 11.50% of all the resources accumulated in the account.
Carlos Ramírez, former president of Consar, had warned that in the past controls have already been established to limit the amount of unemployment withdrawals, but that the market and promoters always find a way to turn it around.
Hence, he said, it will be possible to determine whether the validation mechanism was successful if the unemployment withdrawal figures remain downward for at least six months.
