Mexico passes bill to increase paid vacation days for workers

From the Mexico News Daily:


Lawmakers in the lower house of Congress have voted unanimously in favor of increasing paid vacation days for workers who have completed at least one year of service.

Put forward by legislators with the ruling Morena party and the Citizens Movement (MC) party, the bill will now be sent to the Senate, where it is likely to be approved next week. An earlier version of the same bill passed the upper house last month.

If the bill becomes law, workers will be entitled to take 12 consecutive days of paid leave after completing one year of service with the same employer, double the number they are currently entitled to.

The bill was modified in the lower house’s labor committee to reduce the number of permitted consecutive vacation days to six, with the other days to be taken separately. However, the provision allowing 12 consecutive days off was reinstated before the bill was put to a vote Thursday in the Chamber of Deputies, where all 476 lawmakers present supported it.

Workers who have completed more than one year of service with the same employer but fewer than 10 will also get six additional days of vacation time if the proposed reform to the Federal Labor Law passes the Senate. Those who have completed 10 or more years of service would get eight additional days.

An employee who has worked with the same employer for 2 years would thus get 14 days of paid vacation during their third year of service — compared to eight under the current law — while a worker who reaches five years of employment would get 20 days off, up from 14. The number of annual paid vacation days maxes out at 32 for workers with over 30 years of employment completed.


Manuel de Jesús Baldenebro, a Morena deputy and president of the lower house’s labor committee, said Thursday that increasing vacation time “is an advance in the recognition of the rights that all workers should enjoy.”

“Workers who have more than one year of service will be able to enjoy a period of paid vacations that cannot be less than 12 days,” he said.

MC Deputy Sergio Barrera said that increased vacation time “will be a reality for more than 20 million [formal sector] workers.”

The lower house of Congress in session on Thursday.
The lower house of Congress in session on Thursday. (Cámara de Diputados)
“Today is a great day for Mexico. Today we settle the historic debt with the workers of this country,” he said.

Deputy Marco Antonio Natale of the Green party asserted that increasing vacation time will improve workers’ health and well-being, and also benefit employers as productivity will go up.

The labor committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have reached an agreement to complete the bill’s legislative process by Dec. 15 so that the reformed Labor Law can take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.


Carlos Aceves del Olmo, a senator with the Institutional Revolutionary Party and general secretary of the Confederation of Mexican Workers, said on Twitter Thursday night that the Senate is waiting to receive the bill in order to ratify “this historic conquest of the working class, which guarantees the right to remunerated and decent rest in benefit of physical and mental health.”

The bill was signed by AMLO and is effective for all of 2023.

Sonia Diaz's formula is shown below.

My gardener usually doesn't take a vacation and I pay his vacation pay in December along with his aguinaldo.  But this year he is taking time next month to visit his family in Veracruz.  So I have to deal with the 2023 law now.

I've read posts here in the past where expats say they don't calculate the vacation pay and just give their workers an extra 2 weeks pay at end of year.  For many workers, that won't cut it anymore with the new and far more generous vacation pay rules.  And if you think the gardeners and housekeepers here aren't aware of the new law...think again!

My gardener of 7 years will get 22 days of pay for vacation under the new rules; under the previous law he would have gotten 14 days.  

When I pay him, he and I will sign a statement as we do every year, and we will both get copies.  

My calculation based on the new 2023 formula is:

1,000/7 = 142.86  (his weekly pay divided by 7 days)
142.86 x 22 days = 3,143 (his daily rate times 22 days for his 7 years service)
3,143 x 1.25 = 3,929 (adding the 25% premium in the law)

Vacation  Pay

Vacation pay as per Articulo 76 and 78 of the LEY FEDERAL DEL TRABAJO is to be provided to workers including those that provide seasonal and intermittent services in proportion to the number of workdays in the year either before the vacation or before the year’s end if no vacation was taken. The vacation pay must equal the required number of vacation days of salary plus 25% of the amount (vacation premium) as per Articulo 80 of the LEY FEDERAL DEL TRABAJO. If the employee so decides, their vacation days may be distributed according to their wishes and needs. And, Articulo 81 states that employees must take their vacation days within six months of their anniversary.

To calculate the amount of vacation pay use the amount earned in a week divided by 7 to determine the daily rate. Multiply that times the number of vacation days x 1.25 (that is the 25% premium).

Example: employee earns 1400 pesos in a week, divided by 7 = daily rate of 200 pesos. Vacation days after year 1 is 12 days. Therefore, 12 x 200 = 2400 pesos x 25% extra for premium = 2400 x 1.25 = 3000 pesos.

Year 1 = 12 days    Year 2 = 14 days    Year 3 = 16 days    Year 4 = 18 days     Year 5 = 20 days    Year 6 to 10 = 22 days Year 11 to 15 = 24 days  Year 16 to 20 = 26 days