Posted on April 10, 2017

Theatrical Producer Hires US Deportees

Mexico News Daily, April 8, 2017

Mexicans deported from the United States are finding unexpected sources of employment, mainly in the private sector.

As part of a strategy set in motion by the National Immigration Institute (INM) called Somos Mexicanos (We’re Mexican), deportees are being added to a database through which employers can recruit them.

Such has been the case with Cirque du Soleil, the world’s largest theatrical producer, in the Riviera Maya. Their English-language skills landed jobs for 10 deportees at the Canadian entertainment company’s show called Joyá in Cancún.

Earning around US $600 per week in different positions, They are just the first: the company has already asked the INM for 40 more workers, said Somos Mexicanos coordinator Dalia García Acoltzi.

“These are people that have a great disposition to work.”

The pay might play a part in that disposition. Cirque du Soleil is offering about US $600 a week

Speaking before the International Relations Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, García added that the company is preparing to open another show in Puerto Vallarta, “and we’ll become their source of recruits, given the needs of the show and of returning Mexicans.”

The coordinator of the Somos Mexicanos strategy, which was created last summer, also announced that deported Mexicans with high levels of English will be hired to teach it, all within the framework of the new education model.

So far, she continued, private enterprise has offered its full support in reintegrating deportees to the country’s workforce, something the state governments have yet to do. Only 14 out of 32 administrations have joined the strategy.

García said that of the nearly 220,000 Mexicans deported during 2016, 22% are currently employed in farming and 15% are working in the construction industry.