The maquiladora industry, or maquilas as they are known locally, has been consistently creating jobs in Ciudad Juarez over the past year. According to statistics from Mexico's National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information, (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografica e Informatica, INEGI), the number of maquila employees grew from 152,937 in April of 1995 to 168,622 in April of 1996, representing a rate of growth of approximately 10 percent over the course of the year.
There are now 304 maquila plants in Juarez, many of them Fortune 500 companies that run assembly plants. About 2,000 U.S. citizens work in the Mexican plants, primarily in high paying supervisory or management positions. El Paso supplies just 5 percent of the components used in the plants, but that figure is worth about $300 -400 million to the community's economy.
Source: El Paso Times