Franchises in Puebla face staff turnover and hold back on hiring

The franchise sector in Puebla, Mexico, is approaching the end of 2026 with persistent staff turnover and little scope to expand its workforce. Francisco Lobato Galindo, vice-president of the Mexican Franchise Network (Red Mexicana de Franquicias), ruled out redundancies but said conditions did not support further hiring for the remainder of the year, according to information published by El Economista on 30 September.

Maintaining teams without expanding recruitment

The employment outlook described by the representative combines two distinct points: the intention to avoid staff cuts and the lack of scope to increase hiring. This is therefore not an announcement of redundancies, but a warning about the constraints facing the businesses he represents when taking on more workers.

Lobato Galindo added that franchises face ongoing staff turnover, with resignations occurring every three months. The published information does not specify how many people leave, what proportion of the workforce they represent or why they resign. This timeframe should therefore not be interpreted as meaning that entire teams are replaced every quarter.

Nor does the report clarify whether the hiring constraint includes filling vacancies. This distinction matters for those managing a franchise outlet: maintaining existing staffing levels and expanding a team are different decisions, even though both require resources and planning.

Costs limit room for manoeuvre

This cautious approach to staffing reflects pressure on operations. According to Lobato Galindo, raw material costs are rising by between 15% and 20%, while owners have been absorbing increases in the costs of keeping their businesses running.

The representative warned that their ability to absorb these increases has limits, and that decisions must be taken to avoid repercussions for income and employment. His assessment helps explain why ruling out redundancies does not mean conditions are favourable for hiring more staff.

Sales growth during 2026 has also fallen short of owners’ expectations. In this context, workforce management involves a difficult balancing act: keeping businesses operating with resources under pressure, without suggesting that the organisation has announced job cuts as its response.

This information reflects the outlook presented by the vice-president of the Mexican Franchise Network in Puebla. It is not a national measure of employment, nor does it establish that all franchise brands in Mexico face the same conditions.

The sales recovery does not remove the need for caution

Lobato Galindo said sales recovered during the second quarter, helped by long holiday weekends and celebrations such as Children’s Day, Mother’s Day and Teachers’ Day, as well as the Puebla Fair.

According to his subsequent assessment, that boost did not create sufficient scope to increase hiring in the final part of the year. The coexistence of stronger trading periods and staffing constraints is central to his analysis: a temporary upturn does not necessarily provide greater financial headroom to take on staffing commitments.

Looking ahead to the end of 2026, the representative forecast a less positive result than expected, although he clarified that businesses were not operating at a loss. This distinction prevents pressure on profits from being mistaken for a general statement that businesses are loss-making.

What to review before making staffing decisions

For franchisees, these comments raise a practical question: how to maintain service continuity when staff leave regularly and there is little capacity to expand teams. The report provides no figures on retention, pay or the time needed to fill vacancies; decisions on these matters require information from each individual outlet.

As a management measure, it is worth reviewing resignations, replacement needs and proposals for new roles separately. It is also useful to compare these needs with actual sales and operating costs, rather than assuming that a strong trading period will continue throughout the year.

Practical takeaway: before expanding or reorganising a team, document vacancies and the financial headroom available. The warning from Puebla points to a cautious approach to maintaining operations, not an announced reduction in jobs.