14% of Mexicans work in the U.S.

Mexican workers who work in the U.S.
I was asked the other day about the source of the estimate that a large share of Mexico’s labor force works in the U.S. The source in the Migration Policy Institute, in a publication dated November 2006. “MPI estimates that 9.4 percent of all persons born in Mexico lived in the United States in 2005. In the same year, 14 percent of Mexican workers were engaged in the US labor force compared to 2.5 percent of Canadian workers.”
The report goes on: “According to Inter-American Development Bank estimates, remittances sent in 2001 by Mexicans working abroad totaled $8.9 billion. By 2005, this amount more than doubled and reached more than $20 billion, a lion’s share of which came from the United States. Mexico remains the largest recipient of remittances among all Latin American countries, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total $53.6 billion sent to Latin America. In 2005, remittances equaled to 2.8 percent of Mexico’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”
Also go to my post, “Why poorer educated Mexican men come work in the United States.”