MEXICO CITY — Political strife and drug violence have overshadowed perhaps the most stunning news out of Mexico this year: The nation is creating jobs. Lots of them.
Thanks to a healthy service sector, a strong housing market, rebounding manufacturing -- and some election-year pork -- Mexico has added nearly 950,000 jobs through the first 10 months of the year, recent government figures show. It's the first time in at least a decade that the country has come even close to adding the 1 million positions needed annually just to keep pace with the growth of its working-age population.
The performance is a small victory for the administration of outgoing President Vicente Fox, who failed miserably in his quest to create 6 million net new jobs during his tenure. The country has added 1.4 million jobs since he took office in December 2000, less than a quarter of his target.
Mexico is such a chronic underachiever when it comes to generating employment that one solid year is likely to do little to stem the flow of illegal immigration to the United States. Some analysts doubt that the hot streak can continue. More than half the jobs created this year in Mexico were in so-called temporary posts in sectors such as construction. Cyclical industries such as manufacturing are expected to slow along with the U.S. economy.
Still, the surge has been a godsend to laborers such as Sergio Martinez Beltran, a former field hand from the southern state of Chiapas who has found steady work in the capital's booming construction sector. The slender, 5-foot-3-inch laborer makes $110 for hoisting cement bags six days a week. It's backbreaking, but he is grateful to get a reliable paycheck to support his wife and three children back home in the countryside.
"One job ends ... and there's another," said Martinez, 32, taking a break from his duties on an apartment building rising in the upscale Polanco neighborhood. "Our hope is in God that it can continue this way."
The solid job numbers provide momentum to Fox's replacement, Felipe Calderon, who vows to be Mexico's "jobs president" after he is sworn in next month. He has proposed reducing regulation and making it easier to hire and fire as well as stepping up security to attract more foreign investment. He also wants to boost tax collection so Mexico can spend more on infrastructure, which could expand employment and boost the economy's productivity.
