Maquiladoras and Beyond: The Continuing Search for Competitive Labor

The maquiladora industry, the second largest industry in Mexico, in combination with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has served to encourage direct foreign investment in Mexico. Based on extensive research, this paper provides a general investigation into such issues as productivity, quality, labor availability, sourcing, distribution, logistics, etc., from the perspective of the manufacture of products in Mexico, rather than from the trade perspective. Despite Mexico's proximity to the U.S., fierce competition coming from Asia, and especially China, tends to cloud the manufacturing environment in Mexico by offering more competitive labor. This has many ramifications for manufacturers in other countries as well