Nov. 16--EL PASO -- The depressed automotive industry and the economic downturn in the United States are hurting the maquiladora industry in Juarez and maquila suppliers in El Paso.

Juarez maquiladoras have cut about 20,000 jobs this year, reported Jorge Pedroza, executive director of the Juarez Maquiladora Association, or AMAC.

Maquilas tied to the automotive industry have been hit the hardest, Pedroza said.

But Pedroza and others said the current slowdown isn't yet as bad as in 2000-2001, when a U.S. recession, repercussions of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and companies moving to China had the maquiladora industry reeling.

The industry lost about 70,000 jobs in Juarez between October 2000 and March 2002, reported Jesus Canas, an economist at the El Paso branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The industry now employs more than 200,000 people in Juarez. It also helps create employment at El Paso companies that serve the maquila industry, and brings maquila workers to El Paso to shop.

"We (maquilas) are all tied to the hip with the U.S. economy. We're all seeing a big slowdown, and that's not going to change until we get some stability in the U.S.," said Lance Levine, CEO of MFI International, an El Paso contract manufacturer with one plant in Juarez and one in El Paso. MFI has cut about 100 jobs this year and now employs about 500 people, most of them in Juarez, Levine said.

Felipe Galan Uribe, director of Juarez Economic Development, a private economic development

agency, said, "The number of lost jobs sounds impressive," but those job losses haven't hurt the Juarez economy as much as might be expected. Some companies in the electronics industry are continuing their plant expansion projects, he noted.

The biggest is Taiwan-based Foxconn's huge maquiladora campus under construction across from Santa Teresa. Foxconn will build computers and other electronic consumer products there.

Tom Fullerton, an economics professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, said losing 20,000 jobs in the maquila industry would bring a total job loss of 40,000 in Juarez. That's about 9 percent of total formal employment in Juarez, he said.

"The overall impact is mitigated because many of those (maquila) workers, when they lose their jobs, return to their home states," Fullerton said.

The lost maquila jobs mean about 420 lost jobs in El Paso in several sec-

tors, including retail, finance, transportation and manufacturing, he said.