The BBC says this morning that the Mexican jobless rate has soared, but if you are expected double-digit rates, the report goes on: “the base unemployment rate in June was 3.17%, up from 2.72% in May and 2.39% in June 2002,” while assuring us later that “the 3.17% rate almost certainly massively understates the real situation in the country, economists say.”
Whatever the real rate, there is no dispute that it is rising or why. “The trade figures published by the US government tell a story of sharply sliding cross-border business.... Nafta has brought mainly low-wage jobs at the maquiladora factories which put together goods for export, which make the country vulnerable to the vagaries of its neighbour’s economy.”
