SI: Sony Adding 1,500 Jobs To Tijuana

[Christopher]

Sony is adding 1,500 positions to its work force in Tijuana, hailing it as a hopeful sign of the sector’s recovery. Sony’s decision to expand in Tijuana follows the company’s announcement last month that it is shutting down an LCD television manufacturing plant in Mexicali, one of five Sony factories being shuttered worldwide. State officials say they are nonetheless encouraged by the company’s decision, which represents a $10 million investment for Tijuana, and the expansion of the company’s work force to 5,000 employees from 3,500 before the end of the year.

Alfonso Alvarez Juan, Baja California’s subsecretary for economic development, said Wednesday that the investments are signs of recovery in the city’s maquiladora sector, which has struggled with a drop in U.S. demand for cars, televisions and other consumer products. Sony officials have told Mexican media that the 500 remaining workers at the Mexicali plant, which had more than 2,300 employees in 2007, will be gradually laid off through September.

Due to Tijuana’s proximity to Southern California and the US border and its large, skilled, diverse and relatively inexpensive workforce it is an attractive city for foreign companies to establish extensive industrial parks composed of assembly plants that are called maquiladoras, even more so than other cities in the US-Mexican border zone, taking advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to export products.

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