The Ministry of Labor published on Wednesday an “informative note” in which it made a series of considerations regarding the investigation of Animal Político and Data Cívica on the Youth Building the Future program, but without refuting any of the journalistic findings.
Although the document did not mention this media, our investigation revealed that more than 322,000 scholarship holders were supplying the work of officials in the agencies that fired staff and where they stopped hiring in the face of the austerity policy of the current administration. Which meant savings for the government in payroll, contracts and seniority.
Of that total, 68,000 fellows were in two areas: the Coordination of Welfare Programs (created in the current administration, but without administrative structure or budget for hiring) and the Secretariat of Welfare, performing the same tasks as the Servants of the Nation.
⭕️ Information Note on @JovConFuturo: pic.twitter.com/quLMkEB1gv
— STPS Mexico (@STPS_mx) September 15, 2021
That is why, for example, there were up to 6,000 scholarship holders for each welfare delegation in the states, even if that meant violating the guidelines of the program that limited 25 apprentices per headquarters. And despite the fact that there were 3.5 more interns than Servants of the Nation hired – which amounted to 19,000 – the Ministry of Labor did not mention it in its informative note.
Nor did he explain why the program benefited 23 municipalities – seven of them in Tabasco – with more than 6,000 scholarship holders despite the fact that their unemployment rates did not exceed 3.8% and only one had high marginality, even though the guidelines said that these would be a priority. In contrast, in Cochoapa el Grande, Guerrero, with an unemployment rate of 40% there were only 22 fellows and in nine municipalities with the highest rates of intentional homicide there was not a single fellow.
In the informative note, the Ministry of Labor confirms that only 46% finish the scholarship, because “one million 866 young people have participated in the program and of these, 843 thousand finished satisfactorily”, but does not specify the figures of each of the causes of extinction that would have identified.
And although the objective of the program is for young people to get jobs, only 0.8% were hired in the workplaces where they were apprentices, as pointed out by the Superior Audit of the Federation in the Performance Audit 373-D.
Animal Político requested an interview with Undersecretary Marath Bolaños, in charge of the program since August 18, but for ‘agenda reasons’, it was not granted. On August 31, we gave the agency a summary with the main findings of the investigation to issue a position, but there was no response.
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