Street food statistics at a glance
Street food vendors sit at the intersection of urban demand, informal work, and local trade. The latest numbers for Mexico in 2025 Q1 show a workforce that is large, relatively mature, and overwhelmingly informal, with clear differences by sex, age, schooling, and state (Data México).
If you want the fastest read on the dataset, start with the biggest signals: the workforce totaled 805k, average monthly salary was $4.5k MX, and 98% of the workforce was in informal work (Data México).
Table of contents
- Fast facts
- Workforce size and trend
- Pay, age, and work pattern
- Sex breakdown
- State comparison
- Age and schooling groups
- Employment structure and informality
- What the numbers suggest
Fast facts
Here are the most useful baseline figures from Data México for 2025 Q1:
- Workforce: 805k street food vendors (Data México).
- Average monthly salary: $4.5k MX (Data México).
- Average age: 44.4 years (Data México).
- Average hours worked per week: 34.5 (Data México).
- Average days worked per week: 4.94 (Data México).
- Second-job share: 5.49% (Data México).
- Informal work share: 98% (Data México).
- Average schooling: 8.39 years (Data México).
A few of those figures deserve to be read together. A workforce with 34.5 hours per week, 4.94 workdays per week, and a 98% informality rate is not a standard formal wage segment. It is a large self-contained labor market with its own seasonal, location-based, and household-based dynamics (Data México).
Workforce size and trend
The workforce reached 805k in 2025 Q1, up from 801k in 2024 Q4, which means the quarterly increase was 0.47% (Data México). That is not a dramatic jump, but it does matter because it shows the segment did not contract at the start of 2025.
The trend matters more than the quarter-to-quarter change alone. When a workforce is already large, even a modest rise adds thousands of people. Here the increase from 801k to 805k means the segment kept its scale and edged higher rather than flattening out or shrinking (Data México).
Compact trend view
| Period | Workforce | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 Q4 | 801k | baseline | Data México |
| 2025 Q1 | 805k | +0.47% | Data México |
The broader takeaway is that street food vending remained a major labor category in early 2025. The size alone makes it relevant for anyone studying urban employment, household income strategies, local retail patterns, or informality in Mexico (Data México).
Pay, age, and work pattern
Average monthly salary was $4.5k MX in 2025 Q1, up 10.4% from $4.08k MX in 2024 Q4 (Data México). That increase stands out more than the headcount change because it signals a stronger move in earnings than in employment volume.
The income figure should be interpreted alongside the schedule. Vendors averaged 34.5 hours per week and 4.94 days per week (Data México). That combination suggests a work pattern that is consistent but not fully standard in the sense of a fixed five-day, full-time formal job. In practical terms, the labor input is close to a regular work rhythm, but the employment form is mostly informal.
The average age was 44.4 years (Data México). That places the workforce well into mid-career rather than in a predominantly young entry-level stage. In a segment with high informality, that age profile can be a meaningful clue: it suggests many workers are not passing through briefly, but are instead embedded in the occupation for longer periods.
Earnings and work rhythm
- Average salary: $4.5k MX per month (Data México).
- Quarterly salary growth: 10.4% from 2024 Q4 to 2025 Q1 (Data México).
- Average weekly hours: 34.5 (Data México).
- Average weekly workdays: 4.94 (Data México).
- Average age: 44.4 years (Data México).
One useful way to read these facts together is that street food vending in this dataset looks like a steady, long-running source of income rather than an occasional side gig for most workers. The second-job share was only 5.49%, which reinforces that interpretation (Data México).
Sex breakdown
Women made up 54.3% of the workforce and men made up 45.7% (Data México). That means the segment is female-majority, which is notable in a labor category often treated generically as small-scale urban commerce.
The earnings gap is also visible. Men’s average salary was $5.25k MX, while women’s average salary was $3.87k MX (Data México). That is a sizable difference and it appears alongside only a modest difference in average age: men averaged 43.7 years and women averaged 45 years (Data México).
Sex comparison table
| Metric | Men | Women | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of workforce | 45.7% | 54.3% | Data México |
| Average salary | $5.25k MX | $3.87k MX | Data México |
| Average age | 43.7 years | 45 years | Data México |
| Average schooling | 8.52 years | 8.28 years | Data México |
The schooling gap is small but still visible. Men averaged 8.52 years of schooling, while women averaged 8.28 years (Data México). The difference is not large enough to explain the salary gap by itself, but it does show the two groups are not perfectly matched across human-capital measures.
The sex split matters because it shapes interpretation of the entire dataset. If women are the majority, then pay levels, age bands, schooling groups, and regional patterns all need to be read with that in mind. A female-majority workforce with a lower average salary is a different story than a male-dominated one, even when the occupation is the same (Data México).
State comparison
Regional concentration is strong. The largest workforce state was Estado de México with 115k street food vendors (Data México). Mexico City had 82.9k, and Puebla had 78.4k (Data México). Those three states alone account for a very large share of the national total.
The pay map is even more uneven. Tabasco had the highest average salary at $8.84k MX, followed by Coahuila de Zaragoza at $8.07k MX and Guerrero at $7.53k MX (Data México). That is a striking contrast with the national average of $4.5k MX.
State snapshot
| State | Workforce | Average salary | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estado de México | 115k | not stated | Data México |
| Mexico City | 82.9k | not stated | Data México |
| Puebla | 78.4k | not stated | Data México |
| Tabasco | not stated | $8.84k MX | Data México |
| Coahuila de Zaragoza | not stated | $8.07k MX | Data México |
| Guerrero | not stated | $7.53k MX | Data México |
This split between headcount leaders and salary leaders is important. The biggest labor markets are not the same as the best-paying ones. That usually points to differences in local demand, commercial density, price levels, operating conditions, or the kind of street food work that dominates in each state, although the dataset itself does not quantify those drivers. The safe reading is limited to what the numbers show: scale and pay are distributed differently across states (Data México).
The informality figures also vary sharply by state. Tlaxcala, Tabasco, and Nuevo León each had 100% labor informality among street food vendors (Data México). Colima was at 90.7%, Tamaulipas at 90.2%, and Baja California at 86.7% (Data México).
That range shows street food vending is not just mostly informal nationally; in some places it is essentially entirely informal in the dataset. The state-level variation is useful because it suggests the occupation is not governed by one uniform local pattern.
Age and schooling groups
The workforce is concentrated in the 35 to 44 age group. That group had 182k workers, including 4.1k formally employed and 178k informally employed (Data México). It was also the largest male and female age band, with 81.5k men and 100k women (Data México).
That concentration matters because it tells you the occupation is heavily centered on midlife workers rather than on early-career entrants or older workers nearing retirement. In plain terms, the largest part of the labor pool is not a fringe slice; it is the core of the occupation.
Age group view
- Largest male workforce band: 35 to 44 years, with 81.5k men (Data México).
- Largest female workforce band: 35 to 44 years, with 100k women (Data México).
- Most workers in that band were informal: 178k informal versus 4.1k formal (Data México).
Schooling shows a similar concentration pattern. The 7 to 9 years-of-schooling group had 294k workers overall, including 127k men and 167k women (Data México). Within that schooling group, 6.66k were formally employed and 288k were informally employed (Data México).
Schooling group view
| Schooling group | Workforce | Formal | Informal | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 to 9 years | 294k | 6.66k | 288k | Data México |
This is one of the clearest signals in the dataset. A large share of the occupation clusters around relatively limited schooling, but the dataset does not support any simplistic assumption that lower schooling means weaker participation or marginal attachment. Instead, it shows a dense core of workers in the middle of the labor market, with very little formal employment inside that core (Data México).
The salary by schooling pattern is also uneven. Men with 10 to 12 years of schooling had the highest average salary at $7.23k MX, while women with 16 to 18 years of schooling had the lowest average salary at $3.15k MX (Data México). That is another sign that education alone does not produce a simple linear pay ladder in this occupation.
Employment structure and informality
The headline fact in this dataset is that 98% of street food vendors were in informal work in 2025 Q1 (Data México). That was 43.7 percentage points above Mexico’s average informality rate of 54.3% (Data México). This is not a small deviation; it marks street food vending as an occupation with a much higher informality burden than the national benchmark.
The occupation is also heavily concentrated in a specific retail segment. 92% of the workforce was in retail trade of beverages, ice and tobacco (Data México). Another 7.14% was in retail trade of groceries and food, and 0.29% was in retail trade of computer furniture, equipment and accessories, telephones and other communication devices (Data México).
That category profile shows how narrow the sector definition is in practice. Most workers are not spread across many unrelated retail activities. They are overwhelmingly in one dominant trade category, with a smaller but still visible share in grocery and food retail, and a tiny residual share in another retail class (Data México).
Structure summary
- Informal work: 98% of the workforce (Data México).
- Above national informality average: 43.7 percentage points higher than Mexico’s 54.3% average (Data México).
- Main retail category: beverages, ice and tobacco at 92% (Data México).
- Secondary retail category: groceries and food at 7.14% (Data México).
The combination of high informality, concentrated retail type, and only a small second-job share suggests a labor segment that is structurally embedded in informal commerce rather than temporarily drifting into it. The data does not describe the reasons, but it does show the shape clearly.
What the numbers suggest
The most useful way to read the dataset is as a map of a large informal labor market with strong midlife concentration, female majority participation, and sharp regional pay differences (Data México). The workforce is sizable, the work rhythm is steady, and the average age is high enough to indicate that many workers are likely established in the occupation rather than newly arriving.
A few patterns are especially important:
- Growth is modest in headcount but stronger in salary, with the workforce up 0.47% and average pay up 10.4% quarter over quarter (Data México).
- Women are the majority of the workforce, yet their average salary is lower than men’s, even though the average age gap is small (Data México).
- The biggest workforce state is not the highest-paying state, so scale and pay are clearly not the same thing (Data México).
- Informality is near-total nationally and reaches 100% in several states, which makes this occupation a major case study in informal employment (Data México).
- The 35 to 44 age band and the 7 to 9 years-of-schooling band both contain especially large worker concentrations, showing that the occupation’s center of gravity is very specific rather than broadly distributed across all ages and education levels (Data México).
If you are comparing street food vending with other kinds of employment, the numbers point to a labor market that is highly localized, highly informal, and strongly shaped by state-level differences. If you are comparing workers within the occupation, the dataset shows clear separation by sex, schooling, state, and age band, with salary outcomes that do not move in a simple straight line across those groups (Data México).