Guatemala's place on the regional maquila labor-cost ladder
- Guatemala against the region
- Guatemala against the region
- Audited
Not any more. The regional ladder of minimum monthly labor cost in maquila (approximate, our own conversions): Nicaragua ~US$273 < Dominican Republic ~US$303-337 < El Salvador US$402 < Guatemala ~US$475 (with the bonus) < Honduras ~US$494 < Mexico general ~US$515 < Mexico border ~US$721 < Costa Rica ~US$734 (no separate regime). Three direct competitors in textiles and apparel (Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador) pay minimums 15-45% lower. Guatemala's advantage is the scale of its labor force, not its price. The dossier warns that an honest comparison would require effective wages paid, not minimums (an open gap).
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Ladder of maquila minimums (approx. US$)
- NI 273 < RD 303-337 < SV 402 < GT 475 < HN 494 < MX 515 < MX border 721 < CR 734
Caveat
Sources
Related records
- Population, GDP and labor force: Guatemala versus the region (2024)
- Labor force at 7.5 vs 8.2 million: WDI versus ENEIC
- Guatemala's 2026 minimum wage for maquila and non-agricultural work
- Costa Rica's 2026 minimum wage versus Guatemala
- El Salvador's maquila minimum wage
- Honduras' 2026 maquila minimum wage
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.