By Mariana Hernandez
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -For 11 years, Fabiola Galicia worked her way up the ranks at a factory that produced decorative ribbons in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Starting as a production line worker, she was eventually promoted to manager overseeing 30 employees.
But in June, her shift was cut to just three days a week. Then in August, a representative for Design Group Americas, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, shut down its Ciudad Juarez factory, leaving Galicia and some 300 other workers without jobs.
In court filings, the company partially blamed its troubles on tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Galicia said a company representative also blamed Trump. “They told us the tariffs had affected the company,” said Galicia, whose husband also worked at the company and was laid off.
Design Group Americas didn’t respond to a request for comment about the layoffs.
Assembly plants in Ciudad Juarez, which import raw materials mostly duty free from around the world and export the finished product to the U.S., are in crisis. Trump’s global trade war has added misery to an industry already facing a litany of challenges including rising wages and investor concern over reforms by Mexico’s ruling leftist Morena party.
Known as maquiladoras, the plants account for roughly 60 percent of jobs in Ciudad Juarez. For decades one of the most important manufacturing hubs in Mexico, the city’s industrial sector benefited in recent years as large numbers of multinational companies moved operations to Mexico to avoid U.S. tariffs on Chinese-produced products in a trend dubbed ‘nearshoring.’
But after booming growth and employment, many plants are now shedding workers and in some cases shutting down altogether.
Between June 2023 and June 2025, the municipality of Juarez lost more than 64,000 factory jobs, including nearly 14,000 in the first six months of the year, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
‘CHERRY ON TOP’
The mass layoffs underscore the challenges facing Mexico’s economy, which depends on free trade with the U.S.
Projected GDP growth for 2025 has stalled to less than one percent as companies struggle to stay afloat amid Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs.
Maria Teresa Delgado, vice president of the maquila association INDEX Juarez, said the industry is in “crisis.” Besides tariffs, she and six other business experts attributed the layoffs in Juarez to a combination of factors.
Factories experienced a decline in profit margins following a federally mandated increase in the minimum wage, they said. The minimum wage in Mexico’s northern region has risen since 2019 from 22 pesos an hour ($1.17) to 52.48 pesos ($2.80).
