The number of thousands of garment workers in the Asia-Pacific region who have been laid off and temporarily lost their jobs has increased sharply due to falling orders, the International Labor Organization said.
The Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of textile workers in the world. In 2019, the region employed approximately 65 million textile workers, accounting for 75% of the global industrial workforce.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) studied the 10 countries with the most production in the region, including: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, workers and businesses across the supply chain have been affected by sharp declines in retail sales in key export markets.
As of September, nearly half of production activities in the textile supply chain depended on import demand from major partner countries. Over the past period, demand has fallen sharply and raw material supplies have been disrupted, with imports from major Asian textile and apparel customer countries falling by 70% in the first half of 2020.
Despite the positive response of governments to the crisis, research by the International Labor Organization shows that thousands of factories in the region are still closed temporarily or permanently. The situation of workers who are temporarily out of work and laid off has increased dramatically. Most factories that can resume operations have also laid off employees to some extent.
Christian Viegelahn, labor economist for the Asia-Pacific region of the International Labor Organization, said the average working hours of female textile workers in the region is at least 2-4 weeks. When the factory reopened, only three-fifths of its staff were called back to work. Falling earnings and wage delays became common among garment workers who remained employed in the second quarter.
Covid-19 has also had a great impact on women, who are the absolute main force in the industry. According to the ILO, this exacerbates inherent inequalities in income, workload, occupational segregation and the division of unpaid care work.
Social dialogue can be useful in enhancing responses to crises in countries where dialogue mechanisms are already in place. The organization calls for more inclusive and substantive social dialogue at all national and sectoral levels in the region.
The research report also recommends continuing to provide support to enterprises and extending social security coverage to workers, especially women.
Chihiro Asakawa, the International Labor Organization’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific, stressed that governments, workers, employers and other stakeholders in the industry must work together to find solutions to these situations. This is unprecedented and is more focused on people in the textile industry.
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