Catherwood LibraryILR School

A report released yesterday by the Mexican Government shows a continuing decline in Mexican industrial production---down 1.8 percent from last February---with border regions bearing the brunt of the decreases in productivity and employment. A central part of the Mexican economy, manufacturing has now gone over a year without a period of major growth and has seen a 4.3 percent fall in employment since 2001, with over 240,000 jobs lost in the duty-free maquiladora factory sector that was one of the driving forces behind the Mexican economy. The fact that other economic indicators have shown positive trends in past months has led some to believe that the downturn in manufacturing is less a function of the worldwide economic slowdown last year, than a result of manufacturers leaving Mexico in search of ever cheaper sources of labor.