CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Despite a weak U.S. economy and a drug war that has turned this city into Mexico's deadliest, the maquiladoras are on the rebound.
These assembly-for-export plants that crank out everything from brake pads to plasma TVs for U.S. companies are opening new facilities, expanding existing ones and hiring more employees. Some firms looking for lower costs have even begun shifting production from China back to Juarez.
The recovery of about 350 maquiladoras is the single bright spot in a city where drug violence has killed 7,000 people in three years. The maquiladoras may also be a sign that the economy in the region is finally turning the corner, after gross domestic product for Mexico shrank by almost 7% in 2009, the worst contraction in decades.
"There's some real competing realities in Juarez at the moment," said Bob Cook, president of the Regional Economic Commission in El Paso, Juarez's cross-border sister city. "The violence has not targeted our industry, and the cartels ... have not destroyed all the advantages of doing business there."
Unemployment for Juarez is high, at 7% compared with Mexico's national average of 5.4%. But plants that furloughed employees in 2008 and 2009 are now offering overtime as well as jobs.
The Juarez maquiladoras added about 26,000 new jobs from July 2009 until August 2010, when they employed more than 192,000 people. But there's still ground to make up -- three years ago, the sector employed about 250,000 out of Juarez' population of 1.3 million.
Cook said that since 2008, 106 new permits for maquiladoras were granted in Juarez. An additional 15 companies have notified the commission of plans to locate or expand in the city, which would create up to 11,400 more jobs.
It's difficult to compare Juarez with other border cities because, starting in 2006, the Mexican government began simply listing maquiladora jobs nationwide under "manufacturing." There has also been anecdotal evidence of a recovery in the Baja California city of Tijuana, Mexico's other major maquiladora hub, according to Dale Robinson, president of the Western Maquiladora Trade Association. He could not provide figures.
Carlos Pascual, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said a record 12 maquiladoras returned from China last year to locations along the border, often states with heavy drug violence such as Baja California, Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, home to Juarez.
Associated press
