Mantaruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Tuna fishing & processing
Nirsa, Marbelize, Eurofish, Seafman, and the plants packing for Bumble Bee and Van Camp's
Manta is the centre of Ecuador's tuna industry and one of the largest tuna landing and processing ports in the Eastern Pacific. The canneries are the city's largest private employers and the reason its port, its cold chain and its industrial estate exist at all.
Port, shipping & logistics
Autoridad Portuaria de Manta, cold-storage operators, bunkering and ship-supply firms, customs agencies
A deepwater Pacific port that handles fish, containers and cruise calls, and which is closer to Asian routes than Guayaquil's river port. Successive concession attempts have made its future a recurring political story rather than a settled one.
Edible oils & agro-processing
La Fabril, Ales, and the palm and peanut supply chains inland
La Fabril, one of Ecuador's largest industrial groups and a major producer of edible oils, fats and consumer goods, is rooted in this corner of Manabí. Together with the canneries it makes Manta a food-manufacturing city more than a services one.
Construction & reconstruction
Local contractors, engineering consultancies, and the seismic-retrofit and inspection trade
The 2016 earthquake set off a decade of demolition, rebuilding and code enforcement that is still working through the city. Structural engineering, inspection and retrofit remain unusually large lines of work here compared with any inland Ecuadorian city.
Tourism, beaches & sport
Hotels along the Malecón and Murciélago, Santa Marianita kitesurf schools, Crucita paragliding operators, whale-watching boats
Domestic beach tourism plus two genuine international niches — the reliable cross-shore wind at Santa Marianita and the ridge lift at Crucita — and humpback whales off this coast between roughly June and September.
Higher education & public services
Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí (ULEAM), the municipality, hospitals and the port authority
ULEAM is the main public university of the province and Manta's largest single institution outside the fishing industry, supplying most of the local professional workforce and much of the city's youth population.
Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.