Maquiladora production and employment grew rapidly throughout the 1990s but declined sharply after October 2000.

      The decline was particularly steep in certain industries and in some border cities. Overall, Mexican manufacturing production in the border region also declined and cross-border trade flows fell. At the same time, U.S. border employment in manufacturing and certain other trade-related sectors contracted. Nevertheless, the U.S. border region continued to experience stronger employment growth than did the United States as a whole.

            During the 1990s, maquiladoras proved to be one of the more dynamic components of Mexican manufacturing. Maquiladora production increased by 197 percent from January 1993 until its peak in October 2000, while overall manufacturing production in Mexico increased by only 58 percent in the same time period. During that time period, maquiladora employment tripled, adding more than 900,000 jobs to the Mexican economy. In 2000, maquiladoras accounted for about 4 percent of total employment and about 20 percent of manufacturing employment in Mexico.

      With respect to employment, most major Mexican border cities and industrial sectors experienced growth in maquiladora employment over the decade, although some grew faster than others. For example, Tijuana and Mexicali tripled their maquiladora employment, and the electronics industry more than doubled its maquiladora employment in the border region. The electronics industry, which was already the largest maquiladora employer, added more than 200,000 jobs in the border region during the 1990s. For the Mexican border region as a whole, maquiladora employment rose 145 percent — from 342,555 in January 1990 to 839,200 in October 2000.

      While maquiladoras have typically been concentrated in the border region, maquiladora employment growth throughout the rest of Mexico was actually higher than in the border region during the 1990s. Growth in the non-border region was particularly strong in the textile and apparel sector, in which employment rose in the non-border region from about 22,000 in 1990 to about 224,000 jobs in 2001. As a result of the stronger growth in the non-border region, the share of textile and apparel maquiladora...

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