IMSS Raises Wage Increase to 8% After Workers Reject Initial Offer

Mexico City — The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) has raised its overall wage increase for workers to 8%, after employees rejected an initial 6.8% offer in a consultation held by the National Union of Social Security Workers (SNTSS) on Oct. 14.

IMSS director Zoé Robledo said the increase consists of 4% to base salaries and 4% in benefits, including a housing rent subsidy. The revised proposal is 1.2 percentage points higher than the one union members turned down and will benefit nearly half a million workers.

“This increase listens to the workers,” Robledo said, appearing alongside Labor and Social Welfare Secretary Marath Bolaños.

The director said talks with SNTSS leadership concluded on the night of Oct. 20, and the institute’s technical council approved the additional increase at its meeting the following morning.

Historic Comparison

Robledo said an overall increase of 8% has been reached only three times in the past 23 years, two of them in 2024 and 2025, and that the 4% raise to base salaries outpaces inflation. It is only the second time in 14 years that the salary schedule has reached that level.

Broader Commitments

Beyond the pay adjustment, the IMSS will present its technical council this week with a package of commitments drawn from the “Escucha Activa Piso por Piso” program, which was applied in 277 hospitals and clinics across the country. The plan includes:

• Granting permanent contracts to 10,939 workers without job security, many of them hired during the COVID-19 pandemic, including nurses, doctors, stretcher bearers, cleaning staff and laboratory technicians.
• Performing 31,700 additional surgeries during night and weekend shifts.
• Extending the validity of prescriptions from 72 hours to 30 days.
• Launching the recetacompleta.gob.mx platform for reporting medications that were not supplied.
• Digitizing the collective prescription form.
• Providing basic equipment such as blood pressure monitors, thermometers, pulse oximeters, laryngoscopes and infusion pumps, along with maintenance of facilities and furniture.

The offer does not satisfy everyone. Dissident IMSS workers, who had reiterated their demand for a 10% increase days earlier, called the proposal “unacceptable” and said they will continue occupying buildings.