Question

Reason for getting Job at the Garments Sector
Why you will get a job in the garments sector?

Answer 1

The garment industry is one of the oldest and largest export industries. The industry exemplifies the challenges associated with global manufacturing: low wages, "flexible" contracts and sweatshop conditions. Informal garment and textile workers often experience isolation, invisibility and lack of power, especially those who produce from their homes.

Geographic Dispersal

In the garment sector, production can be dispersed to many locations across and within countries. In developed countries, this is associated with outsourcing production to developing countries. In developing countries, production moves within and between countries in search of cheaper/faster labour.

One notable shift has been to China, now the “world’s factory” in many sectors, including garments. Another shift, especially for the high-end fashion industry, has been to the periphery of Europe (Albania, Morocco, Turkey) and the USA’s neighbours (Mexico and Central America).

Transnational companies can move their capital across borders in search of cheaper labour. Small enterprises and individual workers do not have this mobility, and must compete in an increasingly insecure and competitive environment.

Power Imbalances and Complex Value Chains

Modern production and distribution of garments has created a “the global assembly line” (Carr, Chen and Tate 2000). Power has shifted from producers to traders and retailers. Buyers set the terms for what is to be produced, by whom, where, when, and at what price (McCormick and Schmitz 2001).

Global production and trade are controlled by relatively few corporations. Large retailers, marketers, and manufacturers set up decentralized production networks through which they order the goods and supply the specifications—often with just a click. Tiered networks of contractors produce the finished products for foreign buyers.

Garment production in poorer countries offers needed investment and employment, but there is a competitive requirement “for poorer countries to offer the cheapest workers and the most flexible (unregulated) conditions” (Delahanty 1999: 4). In Thailand, for example, a rising global demand for cheap, labour-intensive goods spurred regional competition and put pressure on Thailand’s manufacturers to cut labour and production costs. Casualization of employment and subcontracting emerged as a strategy to circumvent labour laws while cutting labour costs (Doane 2007).

Fundamental changes such as the rise of giant discounters (low price, high volume – e.g. Walmart) have also fueled changes. The big retailers can place even greater demands on manufacturers to lower their costs and to produce and ship goods quickly (Bonacich 2000).