(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s leading presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum plans to keep raising wages for workers. That’s good and bad news for the country’s biggest employers. 

Higher pay leads to increased costs for employers, especially companies in industries like retail that require a lot of staffing. But workers with fatter paychecks are also consumers, and their spending on food, apparel and travel helps boost growth.

Retailer Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, which has more than 200,000 workers, said in a recent earnings call that a 20% minimum wage hike that went into effect at the start of the year is going to force the business to save elsewhere. 

“The solution to reduce this cost is not something that we are going to see fully implemented in 2024,” Chief Executive Officer Guilherme Loureiro said on the April 25 call, according to a transcript. He did not specify where the cost cutting would come from.

Airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste SAB de CV, or Asur, said last week it has seen wages rise mainly with security and cleaning staff. And Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV said in its own call that higher labor costs drove up expenses in the first quarter.

Under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the minimum wage has more than doubled in real terms to a minimum daily wage of 248.9 Mexican pesos ($14.7). That compares with an increase of 15% during former President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term and 1% when Felipe Calderon was in office, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Felipe Hernandez wrote in an April 29 note.

At the start of her campaign, Sheinbaum suggested the minimum wage would rise around 11% per year, as long as she receives buy-in from the business sector.

At least one company, Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB de CV, is seeing the higher wages as a “blessing,” in the words of its interim chief financial officer Martin Arias. The company, which owns ubiquitous chain Oxxo, says a higher wage floor means their prospective customers have more money in their pockets to spend at their stores and products. 

“To be very honest, we’re all happy about it,” Arias said last week.

Emails seeking comment from Walmex, Asur and Grupo Bimbo weren’t immediately returned.

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