The garment sector might be in trouble
July 15, 2008
If the newspapers are to be believed, in just 30 short days the Cambodian garment industry has moved from facing a near lethal worker shortage to facing a near lethal work shortage.
From The Phnom Penh Post on June 12:
The garment industry is becoming a victim of its own success, with expansion in the sector contributing to a serious labor shortage, factory owners and industry officials say.
Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Kingdom’s largest labor group, said five garment factories have closed since March because they could not hire enough staff. …
He said some factory administrators had asked him to help find workers but the situation was “hopeless”.
AFP tells a very different story today.
[Sath Vanny] left her hometown in the southern province of Takeo seven years ago to work at a women’s shirt factory, sending most of her earnings back to help the family farm.
But a slowdown in orders has the 25-year-old worried about her job. Overtime work has fallen off as Cambodia’s textile sector, the country’s biggest industrial employer, struggles against stiffer global competition and slowing demand.
More than 10 Chinese-owned factories have moved to cheaper markets, leaving hundreds of thousands of garment workers — mostly young women like Vanny who support their impoverished families — facing destitution.
That must be a world record or something. Seriously.
