Country Seeks More High-End Jobs

The boom in Mexico’s clothing industry has been built on the relatively simple job of sewing imported pre-cut pieces of fabric into garments. Most of the higher-tech design and cutting jobs have stayed in the United States--so far.

But Jose Luis Sorcia, director of the local garment industry chamber in this southeastern city, says Mexican firms want that higher-end work too, especially after the U.S. import tariff on cut fabric is phased out in 1999 as required by the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

“The next step is not to just assemble but do the full package,” he said. “The mega-tendency is that U.S. clients no longer want to find the fabrics in Asia, the buttons in the United States, and assemble them here. We want textile factories to be established here to feed us, and we want to do the cutting too.”

The goal, he said, is to attract suppliers to establish plants nearby and joint ventures with major U.S. manufacturers, which will make the Mexican industry less vulnerable to global cycles or currency shifts such as the current Asian devaluations that have made that region’s products cheaper.

Indeed, Burlington Industries is investing $200 million in three new factories in adjacent Morelos state to make fabric and finished clothing--joining DuPont and others eager to get in on the broad-based textile and garment industry boom in Mexico.

Maquiladora clothing exports soared in 1997 to $4.1 billion, up 47.5% from the previous year, the national garment chamber says. Employment fluctuated seasonally between 365,000 and 460,000, up an average of 25% over 1996. Of that employment, 180,000 jobs were generated by the maquiladora export business.

Asian imports into the domestic Mexican market have increased recently, although Mexican exports to the U.S. continue to surge.

In Tehuacan in the southern state of Puebla, the population has doubled in the last two decades, Sorcia said, mainly with immigrants from nearby Oaxaca and Guerrero, two of Mexico’s poorest states, seeking work in the garment industry.

The number of firms here jumped from 150 in 1994 to nearly 600 now, of which 116 are sizable export-oriented companies registered as members of the chamber. The rest are smaller, sometimes family-owned, businesses ranging from a few to as many as 50 employees. These smaller firms mostly supply the domestic clothing market.