Labor outsourcing in the mining-metallurgical industry in Mexico, 2003-2018: Territorial, sectoral and social evolution

• From 2003 to 2018, subcontracted mining jobs in Mexico grew by 550 %. • In gold mining, 3 out of 4 workers were hired through subcontracting. • Big companies held 88 % of all subcontracted mining workers in 2018. • Most women entered mining jobs through subcontracting. • The anti-outsourcing law cut mining subcontracting from 42 % to 24 %. This study analyzes, at the national scale, the territorial, sectoral, and social evolution, and the magnitude of labor outsourcing in the mining-metallurgical industry in Mexico between 2003 and 2018, as well as its main implications for workers. Using census data, company reports, interviews, and document reviews, the analysis shows a 550.7 % growth in outsourced work in extractive mining, concentrated in precious metals and in states such as Colima, with little presence in the metallurgical industry. The consolidation of this model was driven by large companies that, taking advantage of regulatory flexibility and union fragmentation, managed to reduce costs at the expense of lower wages, instability, and loss of labor rights of thousands of workers. Likewise, this study documents the extreme use of outsourcing as a strategy to incorporate women into mining, which accentuated specific barriers related to motherhood, workplace violence and unequal access to training and promotion, thereby reproducing structural gender inequalities. In also reveals a marked asymmetry in the use of this scheme between companies operating in Mexico, Peru, Canada, and the United States: in more institutionally flexible contexts, outsourcing is widely used, whereas in settings with stricter regulation and oversight its use is considerably lower. It is concluded that outsourcing contributed to the increase in precariousness among mine workers and that the 2021 labor reform was an effective response to its abuses, although mechanisms of labour precarisation persist and require complementary policies to strengthen labor justice.