In favor of an economy without discrimination

Mexico has a population of 12 million disabled people and some 9 million older adults. These population groups face difficulties in becoming integrated into the labor market, despite being highly competitive and committed. The Manpower Foundation became aware of this socioeconomic handicap and decided to turn the supposed weaknesses of these population sectors into a strength.

Every year the Employment Fair for Older Adults, organized by the National Institute of Older Persons (Instituto Nacional de las Personas Adultas Mayores, Inapam) in coordination with other organizations, takes place in Mexico City. Every year, the number of attendees increases.

According to international studies, the world population over 65 years old is currently 506 million; but its growth is exponential: in 3 decades’ time, this population sector will increase to 300 million people.

For the labor sector these figures should not go to waste. Currently –according to National Population Council (Consejo Nacional de Población, CONAPO) data– Mexico has more than 9 million inhabitants over the age of 60; by 2050, one in every three citizens will belong to this group, considered today one of society’s most vulnerable sectors.

The –wrongly termed– elderly are not the only forgotten sector of the economy. At world level, the population of disabled people reaches a figure of 650 million, around 10% of the world’s total population. Mexico is not the exception: nowadays approximately 12 million people with some kind of disability live in the country; like the older adults sector, they are excluded from many spheres, especially at the economic and labor levels.

Breaking Discriminatory Patterns
“I feel whole, there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m not sick. I can handle computers and do a company’s accounting, but I’ve been out of work for 5 years,” said Ernesto, 61, to a reporter from the national press during the last Employment Fair for Older Adults. José Díaz, also 61, complained in the same press report: “What is regrettable is that the jobs offered are low level and low pay; I’m a qualified accountant with 30 years’ experience, but nobody gives me work.”

The labor culture in the world has been relegating valuable and experienced people only for questions of age, which have nothing to do with their real competences and proven abilities.

Manpower, a transnational leader in job placement with presence in Mexico since 1969, realized this anomaly and in response decided to create a pilot program in 2001 which would later be called Caminemos juntos (Let’s walk together).

“The initial idea arose out of the need detected between Manpower’s operation in itself and our clients, because they requested very specific profiles: they almost gave us the size and the height they should have. We realized there were many discriminatory patterns in the way in which they made those requests,” said Mercedes de la Maza, who is Executive Director of the Manpower Foundation, a civil association set up in 2004, dedicated to giving company hiring a more human face.

The program Caminemos Juntos was the basis for the creation of this Foundation, which today operates throughout the country, as well as in Central America and the Dominican Republic, and whose operation is carried out with only 3 full-time staff, supported by the participation of some 100 volunteers, all of them Manpower employees.

After the assessment made by the company, which revealed that disabled people and older adults were marginalized despite being a significant labor force for the country, the Manpower Foundation has set itself to incorporating these vulnerable sectors of the population into competitive working environments, making a “normal” selection removed from any discriminatory bias, in order to recover those talents hidden by age, disability or nationality labels and bring them back into the economically active population.

“What we definitely do not do is give charitable employment. In the Caminemos Juntos program we heed the requests of people with motor, visual, hearing and intellectual disabilities, or else with some organic disability such as epilepsy, kidney diseases or HIV. Likewise, we place adults over 50 and refugees recognized in Mexico in decent, competitive jobs. But in all cases, our selection is always made according to the same standards, such as background, abilities, experience, schooling and knowledge of languages,” explains Mercedes de la Maza.

In 8 years of existence, and under this scheme of Social Responsibility, the Manpower Foundation has succeeded in placing some 2,500 employees with these characteristics in 200 companies operating in Mexico. But there is still a long way to go. According to the last census of the Mexican Center for Philanthropy (Centro Mexicano de Filantropía, CEMEF), there are 369 companies in the country that bear the emblem RSE (Socially Responsible Company) and whose policies, nevertheless, fail to take into account the minimum bases for an inclusive and non-discriminatory working environment.

“The fact is that the Manpower Foundation started on virgin ground in this type of hiring, because our labor culture is not so developed in this aspect, [...] now more and more the multinationals are promoting these policies from their corporate offices in other countries, and in Mexico we have been helped a great deal by the emblem that the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare imposed to distinguish those who hire people from these vulnerable groups, but much remains to be done,” comments Mercedes de la Maza.

For the Executive Director of the organization, companies are losing out on the experience and abilities of this population –which adding it up, represents 20% of the country’s inhabitants and at least 15% of the population of productive age– for both the older adults and the disabled people who are given the opportunity of joining competitive environments tend to have a much higher capacity for labor loyalty than the average of employees.

At present, the Manpower Foundation benefits an average of 5,000 people a year in the 4 programs it is developing: Caminemos Juntos, Edu-empleo en línea, Empresa comprometida con la educación and the pilot project called Siembra.

Caminemos Juntos is its most well-established and successful project; while Edu-empleo en línea offers free training through its website and its Training Development Center (TDC), where users can find more than 300 courses online in different subjects and fields, which allow either initial learning or the updating of abilities required today by the business world.

As a result of its strategic alliances with institutions such as the National Institute for Adult Education (Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos, INEA) and the Tecnológico de Monterrey, the Manpower Foundation encourages companies to provide opportunities for their employees to finish basic education –primary and secondary– or complete their baccalaureate.

Finally, the program Siembra which is still at the phase of “pilot project” with a view to being repeated in the future in other latitudes, is for the moment dedicated to supporting women from rural communities in Zacatecas who make textile crafts, thanks to an agreement signed with the Craft Development Institute of Zacatecas.

In Mercedes de la Maza’s words, what the Foundation is seeking is for more and more people to enter more competitive markets, with the aim of improving the quality of life of sectors that today, for some reason, suffer some kind of discrimination, whether due to age, health conditions, gender, race or nationality.

“We don’t charge our client companies extra for this work. For us it is our grain of sand to society, our duty as a socially responsible company, and we do it in our specialty, which is selection of qualified and competitive personnel,” she explains.

The Manpower company, founded in 1948 in Milwaukee, US, has just celebrated a half century of presence in Mexico. Today, converted into one of the leaders in the Human Resources industry, it has representations in 81 countries and manages 4,400 business units. Manpower’s Mexican operation includes some 100 offices distributed throughout the country and from here it directs its presence in 6 Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.