The Aguinaldo – by Mike Leavy

This text is showing a bit late (December 18) within the aguinaldo season, however you will have a number of days left…

Just a few days left for what? In Mexico, staff are legally entitled to an end-of-year bonus. This bonus known as an aguinaldo – though generally it’s simply known as a “Christmas bonus” or a “thirteenth month wage”.

Being an worker. Critically although, all formal staff in Mexico are required by legislation to obtain an aguinaldo from their employer. Paying this year-end bonus shouldn’t be non-compulsory. Employers should pay it.

Once more, by legislation, the aguinaldo have to be paid by December 20 annually. Failure to pay – or failure to pay on time – may end up in fines issued to the employer of as much as 5,000 instances the present minimal wage. However, please don’t wait till December 20 – you’ll be able to truly pay the aguinaldo any time of the yr, so long as it occurs by December 20. Paying earlier ensures that the worker has time to make use of that bonus for planning and doing their Christmas procuring, and many others. Personally, I wish to pay my aguinaldos firstly of December.

As soon as extra, Mexican legislation steps in. The employer doesn’t get to resolve the quantity to pay – that is codified by legislation as nicely. The aguinaldo have to be at the least equal to the quantity an worker would make for 15 days of labor. After all, employers will pay greater than the proscribed quantity, however they can’t pay much less.

Listed below are a few fast examples of the way to calculate the aguinaldo:

Let’s say you will have a housekeeper who you pay 500 pesos per week. You’d merely divide 500 by 7, which provides you the “day by day” pay. And then you definitely multiply that by at the least 15, though many employers select to make use of 20 and even as much as 40 because the multiplication issue. So, for this housekeeper making 500 pesos per week, the minimal aguinaldo can be: 500 ÷ 7 = 71.43; 71.43 x 15 = 1,071.43. That’s the minimal it’s essential to pay the housekeeper.

Now let’s say you will have a cook dinner who you pay by the month; this cook dinner makes 2,000 pesos per thirty days. On this case, you divide 2,000 by 30 – the legislation assumes that the variety of days in a month averages out to 30. So 2,000 ÷ 30 provides you a day by day price of 66.67; multiplied by 15 provides you a minimal aguinaldo of 1,000 pesos. After all, for the reason that minimal aguinaldo is 15 days and a month is 30, you’ll be able to simply divide the month-to-month wage by 2. However calculating the day by day pay helps if you wish to give greater than the 15-day minimal.

Sure, and you may prorate the quantity in such instances. You merely determine the common aguinaldo quantity given the formulation above, after which multiply that by the variety of days within the present yr the worker has labored for you divided by 365. So within the above instance of a cook dinner making 2,000 pesos per thirty days – if this cook dinner began working for you on November 1st of the present yr, then they are going to have been an worker for 61 days (November has 30 days, December has 31). 61 ÷ 365 = 0.17; that is the fraction of the yr the worker has labored for you. So you’ll be able to take the overall aguinaldo and multiply it by 0.17 to get the prorated quantity: 1,000 x 0.17 = 170.

“I don’t must pay an aguinaldo to my housekeeper as a result of I pay her in money and haven’t any formal worker/employer association along with her”. Oh please. Whereas it’s true that many employees in Mexico haven’t any formal worker standing, they nonetheless anticipate and rely on the aguinaldo – to purchase particular meals for Christmas, to purchase their youngsters and grandchildren and different relations presents, and many others. Even when your housekeeper, gardener, or whoever shouldn’t be a proper worker, the cultural expectation is that they get this end-of-year bonus. Please pay it.

You probably have a property supervisor or another entity who offers your family workers for you, then it’s the property supervisor’s accountability to pay the aguinaldo (which they are going to in fact move on to you of their administration charges). In such instances, nevertheless, you need to give your family workers an additional propina(tip) – that is at all times a pleasant and applicable gesture because the yr winds down.

Typically talking, Mexico’s labor legal guidelines lean extra towards worker advantages and rights than these of the employer (United States, take notice). There are a lot of statutory rights granted to the Mexican worker, and the aguinaldo is one which was codified into legislation as a part of Mexico’s federal labor legislation reforms of 1970.

So there we’ve it – extra particulars about Mexico’s aguinaldo than you ever needed to know.

And, for those who haven’t paid your aguinaldos but – excellent news: you continue to have 2 days to get it executed. However don’t wait, do it immediately!