Guadalajara, Jalisco. The 22 economic sectors of the entity, affiliated with the Council of Industrial Chambers of Jalisco (CCIJ), currently have an offer of 5,000 vacancies that they have not been able to fill, a situation that is beginning to worry business leaders.
The coordinator of the CCIJ, César Castro Rodríguez, told El Economista that it is not just about engineers for the electronics and high-tech industry who have been in short supply for a long time, but rather that the lack of manpower is generalized in the rest of the the sectors.
“Right now we have a demand of almost 5,000 people; we are struggling a little because we have vacancies at all levels, degrees, technicians and engineers, in the 22 industrial sectors that we have in the Council of Chambers”, stressed the leader of the industrialists in the entity.
According to Castro Rodríguez, the problem worsened after the pandemic in which many people decided to self-employ and generate their own business, so they no longer returned to work in companies.
The CCIJ coordinator commented that the organization works in a coordinated manner both with municipal authorities to organize job fairs, and with the different universities, in order to prevent the problem from worsening and becoming a factor that inhibits investment.
“That’s what worries us because if you contact a foreign client you have to start your production line, but for that you need training and this gets complicated,” said Castro Rodríguez.
The leader of the industrial sector said that the lack of labor has raised the level of wages for workers, mainly in the electronics and high technology industries.
“The electronic sector is one of those that pays the best; because they are practically two or three times the average salary, but from then on, the levels go up (…) Before we did not have that problem and right now we are struggling; we are doing job fairs in Zapopan, in Guadalajara, we are seeing if we are going to Tlajomulco as well; we are collaborating with the University of Guadalajara, but we definitely do have that problem”, he pointed out.
The coordinator of the CCIJ anticipated, in another topic, that next June the organization will make a tour to the Silicon Valley of San José California to promote investment and also analyze the possibility of visiting China.
Manufacturing relevance
The manufacturing industry is the second sector that contributes the most to the Jalisco labor market, behind commerce.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), the employed population in the state amounted to 3.92 million people at the end of last year, a figure of which 21.9% work in the commerce sector.
It was followed by manufacturing industry (18.4% of the total); miscellaneous services (10.3%), primary activities (9.5%); professional, financial and corporate services (8.7%); restaurants and lodging services (8.6%), and social services (7.9 percent).