| Nafta not helped mexico keep up with jobs { November 19 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069131999851http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069131999851
Nafta 'not helped Mexico to keep up with jobs demand' By Richard Lapper, Latin America Editor, in Miami Published: November 19 2003 18:11 | Last Updated: November 19 2003 18:11 The North American Free Trade Agreement has not helped the Mexican economy keep pace with the growing demand for jobs, according to a report published this week.
The study*, by analysts at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that growth in manufacturing employment has been more than offset by a loss of jobs in the agricultural sector.
"Unprecedented growth in trade, increasing productivity and a surge in both portfolio and foreign direct investment have led to an increase of 500,000 jobs in manufacturing from 1994 to 2002," it says. But during the same period, 1.3m jobs have been lost in the agricultural sector, where almost a fifth of Mexicans still work.
Previous assessments of the trade agreement have tended to emphasise the benefits stemming from investment flows, the increase in Mexico's manufacturing exports and associated financial and macro-economic stability.
The report says, however, that although the overall impact of the trade agreement "may be muddled", it has been a largely negative development for poor rural households. In addition, it says real wages are now lower than they were when Nafta took effect, though much of this decline is a result of the financial crisis that followed devaluation of the peso in December 1994.
Nor has Nafta done much to stem the flow of migrants to the United States, although migration patterns, the peso crisis and the pull of employment opportunities in the United States are largely responsible for the increase.
The report is also critical of the environmental impact of freer trade, even though parts of Mexico's economy have become cleaner since 1994.
* Nafta's Promise and Reality, by John Audley, Demetrios Papademetriou, Sandra Polaski and Scott Vaughan
|
|