Abstract:

The nearshoring of United States of America (US), Chinese, European, and even Mexican companies on Mexican soil is leading to the creation of many new jobs, which 40% of the young unemployed and low-paid Mexicans need [1]. Accordingly, the Gross Domestic Product of Mexico may potentially grow beyond its mediocre yearly average of less than 2.0% over the last 40 years. Mexico should set as one objective to educate people with the necessary skills to be employable in those companies, including top-notch scientists and engineers in Artificial Intelligence, automation, Internet of Things, Big Data, semiconductors, quantum computing, solar panels, and battery chemistry, among other areas. After analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to size the nearshoring opportunities in higher education in Mexico, the strategies should be outlined to reach the objectives. The Mexican education system could be revamped, educating highly trained professionals with special competencies and expertise in specific productive areas such as manufacturing, agriculture, water, energy, and transportation. Although at this moment some Mexican education institutions may not be preparing people with the specific competencies that the market needs or will need in the foreseeable future, what is or will be needed are mostly either technicians or highly specialized professionals, but not plain engineers. Also, the salaries will not increase greatly because the companies are nearshoring or friendshoring in cheap labor countries or reshoring in the US, where energy prices are low. The higher education institutions should have as their main goal to prepare students to develop their countries while trying to take over the temporary opportunity of the nearshoring. The number of engineers in China is four times more than the engineers in the US [2]; therefore, the US will require more people of this profession in search of reindustrialization to compete against China for the US and the rest of the world market, regardless of this first-world country possessing many of the best universities in the world. Many Mexican graduates are highly skilled engineers and scientists, whom the US companies could hire to work in Mexico’s new industrial sites or in reindustrialized places (reshoring) of the US [3]. Likewise, US engineers, scientists, and technicians could work in the modern industrialized regions of Mexico. A superhighway of highly trained professionals that can benefit the industrialization of Mexico and the reindustrialization of the US could be created. In this paper, various particular objectives and strategies for higher education are proposed for the future mutual benefit of the two countries, as well as a few research and development projects and programs in Mexican higher education institutions and laboratories.

References:
[1] V- Gascón, “Sin empleo, 40% de los jóvenes en México,” Debate, 3 November, 2022. Retrieved from
https://www.debate.com.mx/economia/Sin-empleo-40-por-ciento-de-jovenes-en-Mexico-indica-encuesta-de-Adecco-20221103-0318.html
[2] N. Roubini, Megathreats. New York/NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2022.
[3] R. Foroohar, Homecoming. New York/NY: Little, Crown, 2022.

Keywords:

New skills, planning, education, research.