Tijuana industry uptick
- Local reports note a repunte in Tijuana manufacturing jobs and new local factories producing aerospace components. - A new training academy was announced to build local tech and manufacturing skills for the region. - The area is showing higher-value manufacturing growth alongside workforce development efforts. ( )
Tijuana is adding manufacturing jobs again, with new aerospace work and training programs pushing the city deeper into higher-value production. (bajacalifornia.gob.mx) Baja California reported 429,575 formal manufacturing jobs in December 2025, and the state’s IMMEX export-manufacturing payroll was 349,314 workers in October 2025. State data said manufacturing output reached 20,639.4 million pesos in October 2025, up 7.2% from a year earlier. (bajacalifornia.gob.mx) The aerospace piece is getting more visible in Tijuana. Data México lists Baja California with 26 aerospace establishments in DENUE 2025, and Tijuana had 27 aerospace economic units in the 2014 Economic Census, one of the highest municipal counts in the country. (economia.gob.mx) One example is BAP Aerospace de Mexico in Tijuana’s Otay area. Tijuana EDC said the company invested $4.5 million and became the city’s first Nadcap-certified chemical processing facility, adding finishing work like plating and anodizing that aerospace suppliers previously sent across the border to California. (tijuanaedc.org) That changes what “manufacturing growth” means in Tijuana. Instead of only assembling imported parts, more plants are taking on specialized processes that shorten lead times for aerospace customers in Baja California and Southern California. (tijuanaedc.org) The broader state economy still runs on exports. Data México said Baja California sold $60.6 billion abroad in 2024, with the United States taking $54.8 billion of that total, which keeps Tijuana tied to U.S. demand and cross-border supply chains. (economia.gob.mx) Workforce training is moving in parallel with that industrial shift. CETYS in Tijuana is advertising April 2026 programs in lean manufacturing and industrial engineering, part of the local push to train technicians, supervisors and engineers for more complex factory work. (cetys.mx) The state is also framing jobs and skills as a single policy track. Baja California’s Secretariat of Economy and Innovation says its statistics portal tracks employment, income and productivity at the state and municipal level, while the state education system is already publishing 2026-2027 upper-secondary admissions and training information. (bajacalifornia.gob.mx) (educacionbc.edu.mx) Tijuana has spent decades as a factory city for televisions, electronics and medical devices. The latest uptick points to a city trying to keep the jobs base growing while moving more of the technical work — and the training for it — onto the local side of the border. (tijuanaedc.org) (economia.gob.mx)
