'Maquiladora jobs on border decline

Matamoros loses more than 3,000 positions

By MATT WHITTAKER
The Brownsville Herald

January 28, 2007 — The number of workers in the Texas-Mexico border maquiladora industry fell from September to October.

U.S industrial production lagged during that period, dampening work in the manufacturing and assembly plants in Mexico that form the backbone of part of the Rio Grande Valley economy.

Most of the six main border industrial cities — Reynosa, Matamoros, Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Acuña and Nuevo Laredo — recorded job declines, driven primarily by losses in the transportation and textile sectors, according the most recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Mexican government figures.

Development officials in McAllen and Brownsville pay attention to factory employment in Reynosa and Matamoros, the Valley’s maquiladora clusters, because some jobs in the U.S. cities are tied with those south of the border.

Suppliers and logistics companies that cater to the exporting factories, as well as maquiladora management, often locate and live on the U.S. side of the border, pumping dollars into the Valley.

Maquiladora plants along the border take advantage of lower-cost Mexican labor to manufacture products for distribution north or the border, and they form the front line of exporters in Mexico, the United States’ No. 2 trading partner behind Canada.

...

Maquiladora factories along the Texas-Mexico border employ about 450,000 workers, with more than 12,800 jobs added from December 2005 through October. The industry as a whole in Mexico has about 1.2 million workers, including more than 31,000 positions added from December 2005 through October.

“Adding 31,000 jobs in a year ... that’s a mediocre figure,” Sargent said.

For the medium to long term, competition from China will limit Mexico’s maquiladora growth, he said. The industry will enjoy small employment gains but not large growth as Chinese wages remain low and the exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the U.S. dollar remains more favorable for Chinese exporters than those in Mexico.

While the U.S.-Mexico border gets niche operations looking to take advantage of Mexico’s wage advantage over the United States and prime location to reach U.S. markets, “We’re not playing with the big boys,” Sargent said.

At some point, he said, jobs will return from China to maquiladoras in Mexico as the Asian country’s wages rise and currency appreciates to the dollar.

For the short term, the outlook for the maquiladora sector remains mostly positive, with the U.S. industrial sector regaining its upward momentum in November, increasing 0.2 percent, according to the Dallas Fed.

Since many of the Mexican factories produce intermediate parts that are shipped to U.S. automobile, electronics and other manufacturers, maquiladora orders and shipments rise and fall along with U.S. factory output.

Copyright © 2003 The Brownsville Herald'

Haven't written for a quite a while because I've fallen out of love with Juarez's weather... The last two weeks, the skies have been almost entirely cloudy and it has either rained or snowed (3 inches one morning) every few days. Due to ice or flooding on the roads, I've been stuck at home a few days here. Though you would think that a desert would soak up rain pretty quickly, the clay soil here is very poor and the roads have no drains. So heavy rain just pools on the ground for days, and causes new potholes overnight. If you have to drive through a puddle, some of which can be one or two lanes wide, you never know if you are going to drive over trash or a hole, and how large the hole is. Last weekend, we had to rescue some neighbors who drove through a giant puddle and got two flat tires in the process. One tire was torn in two places.

The weather has been much sunnier these past few days, however, and the daily high temperatures are back up to the mid-50s (F). Let us hope that it stays that way, because who moves to Mexico for cold weather?

© 2007 http://cjmex.blogspot.com/

U.S. dental tourism is "booming" in Juarez, according to the Houston Chronicle:

'Jan. 14, 2007, 6:23PM

Dental tourism is booming in Juárez

By ARTHUR FROMMER
King Features Syndicate

Defying the advice of most homegrown dentists, Americans without dental insurance are flocking to border towns of Mexico for crowns, bridges, implants and other work on their teeth. An associate of mine recently paid $560 for such treatments in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico (right across the Rio Grande from El Paso), that would have cost five times as much at home.

To reach El Paso, from which a short walk over the Santa Fe Bridge brings you to Juárez.... From your hotel in El Paso (and it's more comfortable and safe to stay in El Paso while receiving treatment), it's only minutes to Juárez; a U.S. citizen can quickly move back and forth over the bridge, and some dental clinics will even pick you up from your El Paso hotel and deliver you directly to the dentist.

It's significant that the Web site of the U.S. consulate in Juárez lists three prominent dentists in Juárez for which it either vouches or about whom it has received favorable recommendations.'

We haven't been to to dentist yet here, but people do say they're good in Juarez.

The following description about the wild days of illegal border crossings in El Paso comes from an article yesterday in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, "Journal Gazette". The time-frame described is probably 20-30 years ago.

'One recent morning, Reyes stood in the dust of the frontier at the end of the infamous “black bridge,” the old rail trestle where a friend and fellow agent was hit over the head and killed, where hundreds of would-be immigrants would mass on the Mexican side and sprint across in “banzai runs,” overwhelming the Border Patrol.

“To appreciate the peace and tranquility that is here now, you’ve got to imagine what it was like,” he says.

It was chaos.

When the river was dry, the Mexicans walked over. When the river flowed, entrepreneurs set up ferry services; peddlers sold Cokes and snacks. There were crazy hot-pursuit chases on downtown streets, through backyards, even across the campus of a high school on the border.

Enough! decided the first Hispanic sector chief in Border Patrol history. One Sunday morning in 1993, El Paso and Juarez awoke to find the border sealed by 400 agents spread along 20 miles.

At first there was an uproar. Protesters threw rocks, closed bridges, burned effigies. Merchants fretted about lost sales. The Catholic Church pleaded for mercy. The Mexican government complained to the State Department. Even Border Patrol brass in Washington gave Reyes a hard time.

...Daily illegal crossings plummeted from up to 10,000 to a few hundred.'

Apparently, illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. became significant in the 1970s. Currently, 10% of Mexico's population lives in the U.S., half of whom are there illegally.

About 80% of El Pasoans are hispanic, and 67% speak Spanish at home. That seems to also be true of the greater El Paso part of Texas.

The holiday season officially ended Saturday with the celebration of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. Nonetheless, some of our neighbors' over-the-top Christmas decorations remain in place: the giant lawn snow-globe with figurines spinning inside it, the inflatable Santa-on-a-motorcycle sitting on someone's balcony, the nodding lighted reindeer...

It seems cruel to mention it, but this week it has been possible to open the windows and doors during the day because the afternoons are so mild. Probably because humidity is so low here, it's common for the temperature to rise more than 30 degrees (F) every day.

© 2006 http://cjmex.blogspot.com/

The Associated Press yesterday reported that El Paso averages about 6 inches of snow a year. Isn't that a bit much for a desert??