NEWS
Mexico: Pumping Out Engineers
The headlines are about low-wage illegals, but Mexico is swiftly
upgrading its workforce
Business Week/May 22 Issue
For years the Mexican workforce has meant one thing to multinationals:
cheap, reliable labor, perfect for assembling cars, refrigerators, and
other goods in the maquiladoras lining the border with America.
More complex engineering and design work was better done elsewhere in
the global economy -- usually at company headquarters in the U.S.,
Europe, and Japan.
But as maquila-style assembly work migrated
to cheaper locales, and India and China grabbed more sophisticated
design and engineering assignments, Mexican officials knew they had to
do something to stay in the global race. Quietly and steadily, they
have. Over the past 10 years, the country's policymakers have been
building up enrollment in four-year degree programs in engineering,
developing a network of technical institutes that confer two-year
degrees, and expanding advanced training programs with multinationals
from the U.S. and elsewhere.
The result is a bumper crop of engineers. Currently, 451,000 Mexican
students are enrolled in full-time undergraduate programs, vs. just over
370,000 in the U.S. The Mexican students benefit from high-tech
equipment and materials donated to their schools by foreign companies,
which help develop course content to fit their needs. Many of these
engineers graduate knowing how to use the latest computer-assisted
design (CAD) software and speaking fluent English.
This expanding workforce is changing the way multinationals view the
country. They can now shift more complex production to Mexico, along
with higher-skilled jobs. But it goes beyond manufacturing: Companies
such as General Electric (GE
), General Motors (GM
), Honeywell (HON
), and Delphi (DPHIQ
) have created large research and development centers employing hundreds
of Mexican engineers to carry out sophisticated design modifications and
handle the testing of everything from new car models to military and
commercial jet engines. "In the past five years, Mexican engineers have
become increasingly qualified and gained valuable experience," says
Alfredo Juárez, a director at the country's top engineering school, the
National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. "We constantly have major
multinationals here trying to recruit dozens of engineers at a time."
MEXICALI MECCA
One is GE, which employs 550 engineers at a tech center in the colonial
city of Querétaro to help design and test jet engines and energy
turbines. It's one of a handful of Global Engineering Centers that the
company has worldwide, including India, Poland, and Russia.)
Eduardo Lemini is a GE engineer at Querétaro. He spends his days huddled
over CAD displays, making design changes and performance calculations,
running tests on commercial and military jet engines, and working with
his GE counterparts around the world. The 28-year-old holds a doctorate
in engineering from the Institute of Science & Technology at the
University of Manchester, England, where his research focused on
computational fluid dynamics. Mexico's National Council of Science &
Technology footed the bill for Lemini's studies abroad. Says Lemini, who
was immediately hired by GE when he returned home: "This is a great time
to be an engineer in Mexico."
And a great time to employ one. Companies are creating or expanding
research and development and testing centers from Mexico City to
Mexicali. The young engineers being hired are capable, and they're a
bargain, earning on average one-third what their U.S. counterparts do. A
newly minted engineer earns around $15,000 a year, and those with
experience take home $25,000 to $35,000. Vladimiro de la Mora, director
of GE's R&D center in Querétaro, figures he'll hire 200 new engineers
this year, as GE's Aviation and Energy divisions throw more work his
way: "We're growing because Mexico's technical expertise is deepening,
but also because it costs us 30% to 40% less to do the work here than in
the U.S."
The global aerospace industry is the latest to seek out Mexican
expertise. Honeywell Aerospace recently broke ground on a $40 million
systems integration and testing laboratory in Mexicali, along the border
with Arizona. It will employ 300 Mexican engineers and run simulations
for aircraft systems developed by Honeywell worldwide. Canadian aircraft
maker Bombardier Inc., meanwhile, is relocating all electrical wire
harness work for its planes to Querétaro from Montreal, Toronto, and
Wichita, and shifting fuselage assembly to Mexico from Belfast. If all
goes according to plan, the Canadian company will be assembling entire
aircraft in Mexico in 7 to 10 years. To win the Bombardier investment,
Mexico even pledged to build a new aerospace university nearby. "We're
impressed by the government's commitment," says Réal Gervais, a
Bombardier vice-president who heads the Mexico operations.
A success story? Yes, but one with some caveats. As promising as the
future is, Mexico's engineering schools may be a few years ahead of the
country's industrial development curve, churning out too many
professionals for current demand. While multinationals are taking the
cream of the crop, the rest of Mexico's engineers must compete against
less educated but experienced, lower-cost technicians for a limited
number of supervisory positions. Mexico has been educating these
technicians in record numbers as well.
Electrical engineer Jorge Perez, 42, knows what this competition is
like. Perez worked for Siemens' (SI
) medical equipment group for 12 years. He just completed Bombardier's
training course and hopes to work as a supervisor in the wire harness
factory, a task for which he is probably overqualified. "An engineering
degree doesn't guarantee you a job in Mexico, even today," says Perez.
"I know a lot of underemployed engineers."
Mexican officials hope that as more multinationals get hooked on the
expertise of local technicians and engineers, they will keep sending
more sophisticated work to Mexico, providing plenty of quality jobs for
everyone and moving the country further up the ladder of development.
The youngest Mexican engineers fervently believe this will happen.
Twenty-three-year-old Mayra Ponce holds an undergraduate degree in
aeronautics engineering from National Polytechnic. She is about to wrap
up a 12-week intensive training course that will put her first in line
for an engineer's job assembling aircraft fuselages for Bombardier. "I
see this as a great opportunity to start at the bottom and learn how
airplanes are made," she says. Her goal: design aircraft someday, even
though Bombardier has not announced plans to do such work in Mexico. A
lofty aspiration, but also a sign that Mexico is still in the global
race for the best jobs.
Business Week article at:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_21/b3985070.htm?campaign_id=rss_magzn
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