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The crisis that
is hitting the US real estate industry is causing a sharp slump in the world’s
largest economy, which is heading for a foreseeable economic recession. As panic
spreads inside and outside the United States, due to the prevailing
interconnectivity of the global economy, Mexico’s federal government is
irresponsibly attempting to transmit not only calm, but even excessive
enthusiasm, by declaring that the Mexican economy will be favored by the
situation. What is clear is that the die has been cast for millions of Mexicans
on either side of the Rio Bravo.
In the
United States, the growing economic crisis will directly impact migrant
workers, as they form “the lowest and most vulnerable rung in [that country’s]
labor market,” Rodolfo Cruz Piñeiro, researcher at the Colegio de la
Frontera Norte (Colef) commented to the newspaper La Jornada. The
paralysis in the real estate industry has had a direct effect on the
construction industry, where 20 percent of the 6.5 million registered migrant
workers (according to US statistics) are employed, and many of them will lose
their jobs. This rise in unemployment will in turn impact the remittances that
migrants send to their families in Mexico, while at the same time it is
expected that US authorities will enforce anti-immigration laws more strictly
and the number of deportations will grow.
In Mexico,
concerns over the impact of the US recession on the country’s tourism industry
are already being voiced. The World Tourism Organization recently cautioned that
current economic conditions in the United States will bring down
tourist flows worldwide.
What will happen in Mexico, where
85 percent of the tourists it receives come from the United States?
Will there be mass layoffs? Will employers take advantage of the situation to
reduce the already low wages paid by the industry and increase the
precariousness of labor conditions? What’s certain is that nothing good will
come of this situation.
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