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🇲🇽 ❌ 🥑 🚙 — Mexico faces broad labor shortage, starts pilot program for migrant workers

🔶 A study by the Employers' Confederation of Mexico (COPARMEX) found that 75% of employers in Mexico say they are struggling to find workers.

🔶 For decades, Mexicans crossed the border to pick Americans’ lettuce, grapes and strawberries - but now the country is running short of farmworkers.

🔶 The workforce in agriculture in particular is graying fast; nearly three-quarters of Mexican campesinos are over 45. Young people are turning up their noses at farm jobs. And those willing to do migrant work have other options.

🔶 The U.S. appetite for made-in-Mexico goods, from avocados to automobiles to airplane parts, is growing so fast that it’s straining the workforce that produces them.

🔶 The problem is particularly acute in agriculture. The companies that put berries on Americans’ tables, such as Driscoll’s and Naturipe Farms, work with growers on both sides of the border, taking advantage of different harvest seasons.

🔶 But in Mexico, the farms are competing with manufacturers for workers. In a land once known for cheap, abundant labor, business groups say job vacancies could top 1 million.

🔶 In a once-unthinkable move, Mexican farmers are now calling for a major guest-worker program of their own. The government is taking the first step, planning to soon open a database of 14,000 jobs in agriculture and other sectors to non-Mexicans.

🔶 While wages here remain well below U.S. levels, employers hope some migrants might be willing to swap the American Dream for a Mexican one.

“We’re talking about Mexico having 1.5 million unfilled job openings,” said Giovanni Lepri, the Mexico representative for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “People in search of a better life could fill at least part of that.”

🔶 Mexican farmers say the exodus has compounded a labor shortage caused by the country’s declining birthrate and competition from other industries. They’re 10 to 15 percent below the number of crop pickers they need for the spring harvest.

“Mexico has to think seriously about what to do about workers,” said Juan Cortina, president of the National Agricultural Council, which represents farm producers. “We need temporary work visas for our neighbors to the south.”

🔶 Mexican employers have had to offer better conditions to attract workers. Harvesters’ salaries have been hiked up to 100 percent in the past few years.

🔶 Mexico has long recruited Guatemalan guest workers to help pick coffee beans in southern Chiapas state. But now authorities are crafting a broader program.

🔶 A new pilot program would allow migrants and people living abroad to apply for visas to fill jobs in Mexico.

🔶 The labor shortage is having a significant impact on not only agriculture, but businesses across all sectors, including manufacturing, wholesale trade, electricity, water, and gas.

🔶 Earlier this year, Toyota was forced to repeatedly halt production at a Mexico plant after local labour shortages snarled output at suppliers.

🔶 Delays have prompted the automaker to postpone the start of production of electric vehicles in the United States by six months to around June 2026.

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