Queretaro, Mexico Labor Availability and Outlook 2022

According to recent surveys and market data, the biggest challenges facing companies in North America today are rising costs, worker shortages, and supply chain issues. These problems are arising as economies and companies worldwide begin to recover and restructure from the pandemic and find ways to become more agile, resilient, and sustainable. Mexico, specifically the Queretaro region, offers solutions to these central problems.

Firstly, manufacturing companies in North America have been hit especially hard by labor shortages. Employers are being forced to drop hiring requirements and hire people they usually wouldn’t to fill positions. According to Statistics Canada, there were 915,500 unfilled positions in the country in the fourth quarter of 2021. That’s up 63% compared to 2020. Though the pandemic and its lingering effects, such as decreases in immigration, have aggravated hiring problems, a more significant root cause in Canada is an aging population.

The US Labor Department reports 5.5 million more job openings than workers available to fill them. Part of the cause in the US is its low participation rate, meaning fewer workers are currently working or seeking work than even before the pandemic and significantly fewer than ten years ago.

Companies looking to manufacture in Queretaro, Mexico, will find qualified and available labor while saving on costs. According to recent data, at the end of the second quarter of 2022, 25,420 unemployed and economically active people are available for work in the Queretaro metropolitan area,  with labor rates in Queretaro ranging from around US $12 daily for entrance-level workers to around US $20 per day for multi-faceted employees capable of carrying out supervision and training tasks.

In addition to these significant cost savings and availability, employees in Queretaro are known for their high productivity and performance. The labor environment in the area is also highly stable and has not experienced an industrial strike in over 27 years.

Another advantage Queretaro offers is the high level of skills of its labor force. The area has 102 training centers, 28 technical high schools, 13 technical universities, 104 higher education institutions, and was the city with the most graduates from university engineering degree programs in all of Mexico in 2020 (2,554 graduates).

On the other hand, Queretaro, Mexico, has the ideal environment for creating resilient and balanced supply chains. Many international companies are paying the price for having spread their supply chains across the globe and having systems that are overly complex and not easily adaptable. The Queretaro area already has strong regional supply networks and 53 R&D centers, and seven clusters in the automotive, aerospace, logistics, plastics, IT, medical, and energy industries. Companies can take advantage of this and integrate seamlessly, finding providers, collaborators, and employees that add value to their supply chains across the board.

Queretaro, Mexico, is an excellent option for investing and establishing operations due to its qualified and productive labor force, cost savings, mature supply chains, and supplier base. If you want to know more about specific capabilities and labor rates for your operations or learn more about how to set up or expand in Mexico, reach out today.