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My parents and extended family owned and operated clothing factories in two countries and in the US for some time. The idea that clothing manufacturing (as in
by robomartin 4y ago
My parents and extended family owned and operated clothing factories in two countries and in the US for some time. The idea that clothing manufacturing (as in mass products, not niche items) will come back to the US (or Europe) is unimaginable.
There are so many layers to this. At $15 per hour minimum wage the math simply does not add-up. People are not willing to pay enough for clothing to be able to support mass US or European manufacturing. That cork was put on that bottle a long time ago. This, BTW, is the case for lots of other sectors, not just clothing.
- herbst 4y agoIn european clothing there is clear visible trend to 'locally' manufactured clothings. A lot of european brands moved to UK or Turkey.
- oezi 4y agoGiven that a pair of Jeans in Europe costs usually 100 EUR or more in retail, I never understood why the manufacturing couldn't cost more than 5 USD somewhere in South East Asia.
- ido 4y agoBecause the retailers and the manufacturers aren't the same companies - the retailers are looking for the cheapest goods to buy and have a lot of other expenses as well (rent, wages for shop staff, capital for maintaining inventory, etc).
- ido 4y agoMy family had a textile factory in Israel from the 1970s until the mid 90s - it used to be very, very profitable until the market opened up to imports from China/India in the 90s. Within a few short years my parents had to shut down the factory because they couldn't compete with countries where the prevailing wage was < 1/10th as much as Israeli minimum wage.
- robomartin 4y agoExactly the same situation. Even better, military clothing contract cancelled once imports from China came in. Brilliant.