The all-glass skyscraper of German multinational Bosch can be seen from far away in the center of Guadalajara, western Mexico. From inside, there's a breathtaking view over the capital of the state of Jalisco, now nicknamed "Mexico's Silicon Valley" for having become, over the years, one of the headquarters of the international electronics industry. Bosch's premises are a good example: The average age of the cap and backpack-wearing employees you encounter is 35. Between offices and laboratories testing programs and chips, the engineers have armchairs, ping-pong tables and a ball pool to think and relax in. "We have to be attractive to retain our staff. As in California, our employees are worth a great deal. In Guadalajara, there is currently more demand than supply, and we are implementing strategies to attract talent," said site manager Roger Eleutheri.

Like all the companies Le Monde met in this city of 1.5 million inhabitants, Bosch has plans to invest more in Mexico, where it already has 14 plants and over 20,000 employees. The multinational will be opening two new industrial sites in the cities of Monterrey (Nuevo Leon state) and Querétaro (Querétaro state), and increasing the size of its existing sites in central Mexico, in Celaya (Guanajuato state) and Aguascalientes (Aguascalientes state). In each of these cities, it's all about assembly plants (maquiladoras, in Spanish) where components are imported, assembled and the final product exported, benefiting from tax exemptions from start to finish.

But in the state of Jalisco, the situation is different. The German company has been developing an engineering and research center since 2014, today employing 1,200 engineers and looking to recruit a further 800 by 2026. "In Guadalajara, there's a unique ecosystem of technology and software production, and above all an equally unprecedented collaboration between local government, universities, the private sector and chambers of industry where we're all looking to develop science and create well-paid jobs," continued Eleutheri, who is also president of the National Chamber of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology Industry (CANIETI).

14 free trade agreements

The investments planned in the state of Jalisco show a rather happy face for something known in English as nearshoring, a phenomenon that Mexico has largely benefited from since the Covid-19 pandemic. "To put it simply, it means bringing production closer to the consumer. In Mexico, we have the great advantage of sharing 3,100 kilometers of land border with the United States, the world's largest consumer," explained Javier Carral Trigueros, president of Sanmina Mexico, which has three plants in Guadalajara and 8,000 employees.

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