Employment Change and Competitiveness for the Mexican Regions: A Shift-Share Analysis

Regional competitiveness has had a major reconfiguration in the last 15 years in Mexico. This can be seen clearly in the employment creation. Those regions that were characterized by the best employment rates now seem to fall slightly behind. To test this, we used a shift-share analysis to decompose the change in employment in three effects: the national growth, the industry mix and the competitive component for the period 1999 to 2009. The results show that the states bordering the United States show the normalized employment growth slowing, while the two regions with the highest growth are located in the south of the country. It was identified, further, that for the former, the competitive component is the most influential in their poor performance.