Exploitation or choice? Exploring the relative attractiveness of employment in the maquiladoras

This study investigates the relative attractiveness of production level job s provided by multinational firms in Mexico's maquiladora industry. We take the position that workers themselves are an important and often overlooked source of information relevant to the controversy focusing on the responsi bilities of multinational companies to their employees in the developing wo rld. We conducted interviews with 59 maquila production level workers in th e Mexican cities of Cd. Juarez and Chihuahua. Using a relative attractivene ss framework that compared maquila jobs to other employment available in th e local economy: maquila line and technical workers responded to questions addressing why they were working at a maquila, their work history, the attr activeness of maquila jobs compared to both their prior jobs and the jobs h eld by friends and family, and whether they planned to continue working in the maquilas. While the responses from maquila workers are diverse, they su ggest that maquila jobs provide attractive employment for the economically disadvantaged in Northern Mexico.