The latest Parque del Jaguar layoffs left more than 60 workers in Tulum without a job on July 1 and 2, after Grupo Mundo Maya declined to renew their expired contracts, the affected employees said.
The dismissals landed on people who described the project as their main source of income, and they now face uncertainty over the labor benefits they believe they are owed. For a municipality already absorbing a sharp tourism slowdown, the cuts widen a labor crisis that has trailed the federal park for months.
Short contracts that workers say left them exposed
According to the former employees, they were first hired under temporary three-month agreements and later moved onto contracts lasting only one month. They described that arrangement as one that kept them in a state of permanent job insecurity, uncertain from one renewal to the next.
When the contracts reached their expiration date on June 30, the workers said, they were told their services were no longer required. They added that they had not received a fuller explanation for the decision.
"They told us the contract would not be renewed because our services were no longer needed. What worries us most now is what will happen with our benefits and with our families, because many of us depended on this job," some of the affected workers said.
Benefits and family income now in question
The central concern voiced by the group is the fate of their prestaciones, the severance and benefits owed under Mexican labor law at the close of an employment relationship. Several said they had built their expectations around the federal projects promoted in the region, which makes the end of their contracts a heavy blow to household finances.
The timing sharpens the impact. Many of the dismissed workers are the sole earners in their homes, and the local job market they would normally turn to has thinned considerably over the past year.
A tourism downturn behind the Parque del Jaguar layoffs
The cuts arrive as Tulum absorbs a broad decline in tourism and commercial activity, with several sectors reporting weaker numbers through 2025 and into 2026. The park itself has drawn repeated criticism over access fees and beach restrictions inside its boundaries, complaints that have coincided with lower visitor traffic.
The figures illustrate how quickly the trend turned. After a record first quarter in 2025, when the Tulum archaeological zone reported roughly 150,000 visitors in January alone, arrivals fell steadily through the following months, dropping to about 51,000 in June and 65,000 in July, according to figures cited in regional reporting.
This is also not the first round of cuts tied to the site. In October 2025, the company confirmed at least five dismissals in maintenance and operations, while internal sources warned at the time that the total could climb past 40 in the following weeks. Earlier that autumn, hotel staff had already protested outside the complex over what they described as labor abuses and unjustified dismissals.
Allegations the company has not answered
Some workers went further, raising claims of administrative irregularities inside Grupo Mundo Maya. They also referenced the departure of the person who had served as director general, General Adolfo Héctor Tonatiuh Velasco Bernal, a change that has not been officially confirmed.
The former employees additionally questioned what they described as the assignment of contracts to people close to the administration. Those accusations have not been confirmed by any authority. Neither Grupo Mundo Maya nor federal officials have publicly responded to the claims or to the dismissals, and no individual named by the workers has been charged with wrongdoing. The allegations rest, for now, solely on the accounts of those who lost their jobs.
Workers ask federal authorities to step in
The group called on federal authorities to review the conditions under which the dismissals took place and to guarantee the labor rights of everyone who worked on the project. Some former employees have signaled they may pursue claims for unjustified dismissal, echoing the path other dismissed park workers described in earlier rounds of cuts.
For now, the workers are left waiting on two fronts. One is whether they receive the benefits they say they are owed. The other is whether any authority takes up their request to examine how the Parque del Jaguar, presented as a flagship federal project for the region, arrived at a point where the people who ran it were let go a day after their contracts lapsed.
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