Global economic trends fuel the growth in the number of manufacturing workers in Mexico.

The country’s National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI) recently announced a year over year increase in the number of manufacturing workers in Mexico. According to the government data provider, employment in national manufacturing firms, and registered IMMEX, or maquiladora operations, experienced a rise of five percent this past May, when compared with numbers from May of 2013. During the same period, non-manufacturing employment in Mexico increased at a slower pace of 1.6 percent.

Of the increase registered in manufacturing workers in Mexico, 88.6 percent resulted from the creation of more IMMEX, or maquiladora industry jobs, while 11.4% resulted from growth in manufacturing firms of domestic origin.

States experiencing the highest percentage growth of workers in the Mexican manufacturing sector during the period under consideration are:

  • Durango with an increase of 19.8 percent
  • Guanajuato with an increase of 18.3 percent
  • Queretaro with an increase of 18.3 percent
  • San Luis Potosi with an increase of 8.4 percent
  • Aguascalientes with an increase of 7.7 percent
  • Coahuila with an increase of 7.7 percent
  • Sinaloa with an increase of 4.9 percent
  • Chihuahua with an increase of 4.4 percent

A look at the composition of industry subsectors in which the increase of manufacturing workers in Mexico has occurred shows that an aggregate fifty-one percent of recently added workers in IMMEX program establishments have been employed in:

  • Transportation equipment manufacturing
  • Plastics and rubber component manufacturing
  • Metal fabrication
  • Computer, measuring and communication equipment manufacturing

As of this past May, the number of IMMEX registered operations employing manfacturing workers in Mexico totaled 6,216. This number represents a 1.9% decrease in recent year over year figures. During the calendar year under consideration the total percentage of manufacturing businesses, both IMMEX and domestic capital, constituted 81.7 percent of registered economic entities, while 18.3 percent of firms were involved in non-manufacturing activities.

Because of Mexico’s growing cost advantage vis-a-vis other low cost countries, as well as due to its proximity to the world’s largest consumer market, it is projected that the number of manufacturing workers in Mexico will continue to increase in the coming years. The globally recognized Boston Consulting Group projects that by 2017, increased manufactured exports from Mexico will add between “US $20 to US $60 billion” in output to Mexico’s economy on an annual basis, and will contribute to the continuance of current upward trends in the addtion of manufacturing workers in Mexico to the economy.

Read the primary source for this post in its original Spanish at El Financiero.