According to the director of the national employment service in the city, Luis Rodolfo Enriquez, the Mexican maquiladoras have conducted job fairs for the migrants that are aimed at filling the vacancies.

Mexican maquiladoras in the Tijuana, Baja California and other states in the US-Mexico border region have recently offered a total of 7,000 manufacturing positions to members of migrant caravans that arrived on the US-Mexico border late last year.  It is estimated that there are 10,000 job vacancies in the Mexican maquiladoras nationwide.   This is according to the National Council of the Maquiladora Industry, also known by its Spanish acronym Index.

Organizations are working together to place migrants

Mexico’s national employment services director in Tijuana, Luis Rodolfo Enriquez, reported that job fairs have been held in the shelters in which the immigrants have been housed.  Enriquez also expressed that the goal of these events has been to inject these new arrivals into the Tijuana workforce as soon as possible. In addition to working with state government, local officials have also coordinated with the UN’s Commission of Immigration to hold additional job fair events for the newcomers.

While the national employment service’s Tijuana director realizes that it is the goal of a large number of the people in the migrant shelters to travel to the United States, he feels that, if offered employment, some may take positions that are being offered by the Mexican maquiladoras in the city.  He stressed that his office is committed to helping those that are willing and able to work jobs in Tijuana’s manufacturing sector to find them.  Enriquez has been working in close conjunction with Mexico’s National Institute of Migration to secure work permits for those individuals that have opted to take positions that have been offered.   Migrants that are willing to work are able to apply for a one-year humanitarian visa that would allow them to work legally in Mexico.  In addition to Tijuana and Baja California, Mexican maquiladora jobs are also open to Central American migrants in mainly the electronics and automotive industries in the border areas of the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas.

Beginning last November, Mexico’s Secretariat of the Transport and Communications reported that five hundred and forty-six migrants that had entered the country in the previous month were given their first paycheck of 2,262 Mexican Pesos, which is approximately US $118.  In addition to this amount, workers from Central America were paid the benefits that are mandated by Mexican labor law.   To date, approximately 2,300 members of Central American migrant caravan have taken jobs in Mexican maquiladoras.  The average monthly salary paid to these laborers is approximately 9,000 Mexican pesos, which is nearly US $420 per month.  Mexico is offering free transportation to migrants that wish to return to their homelands.