San Francisco/Mexico City - Amazon, Facebook and other U.S. tech companies are expanding operations south of the border as Mexico works to capitalize on the Trump administration's anti-immigration stance.
Since the beginning of the year, Amazon.com Inc has opened a new engineering office in Mexico City, while Facebook Inc has partnered with local groups to develop technical talent in the region.
Oracle Corp plans to expand its offices in the Pacific coast state of Jalisco, local officials said, possibly bringing hundreds of jobs.
In Guadalajara, the State of Jalisco's capital city, a new group devoted to recruiting startups expects to have ten new companies in the region by year-end, with another sixty in the pipeline. And the landlord of choice for many startups, the shared-office juggernaut WeWork, said it has opened five locations and now serves 6,000 workers after debuting in Mexico City last September.
U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to reduce immigration to the United States, including new constraints on H-1B visas for skilled workers - which many tech companies rely on for attracting foreign talent - have prompted countries ranging from China to Canada to step up recruiting tech workers and startup companies that might once have found a home in the United States.
To be sure, it is not yet clear if the benefit to Mexico's tech industry will be deep or long-lasting. Mexican government statistics have not so far shown an uptick in temporary residence cards granted to foreign workers, suggesting that most prospective U.S. H-1B visa applicants are not yet looking south.
Nonetheless, Mexico's tech sector has been adding jobs at a healthy rate in recent years, and all signs point to continued strength.
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