It’s election time... a time for frenzied debates, and I happen to listen to one such panel discussion wherein one of the panellists said that since manufacturing is capital intensive and the ongoing recessionary trend limited our capital resources which led to low employment generation... how does this argument stand for a Government which fails to acknowledge an industry which employs 14 million people and most of them either uneducated or just primary pass (a myth broken by a StitchWorld survey which shows that 71% are 10th pass) and who all can be put to the shop floor by training him or her for just about 8 days, speaks of the importance of the industry in a developing economy, especially where the manpower is young and abundant... In fact, Garment manufacturing is one industry which has been instrumental in the growth of all the developed economies of today and plays a very important role in the developing economies.
Over the decade long journey of StitchWorld, I have repeatedly advocated the importance of the industry for the overall economic development of the nation through the critical aspect of skill development of the lowest level of the resource chain right from the sewing skills to other 30 different types of pre-production and finishing skills. No doubt the sewing operators are larger in number, but other processes too require continuous skill enhancement and play an instrumental role in upgrading the industry. Our next issue will discuss different aspects of skill development… don’t miss the edition, which also has an analysis of the survey results carried out on 567 workers from 45 factories in Delhi-NCR, on safety, health and educational concerns.
Even as the industry debates skill development and funds are being allocated under various schemes for the same, a major concern today is the non-availability of workers across all major garmenting hubs. In the recently published AO Top 100 listing in Apparel Online, labour is among the top ranking concerns of the industry. In fact, labour shortage has been responsible for holding up expansion plans of many… the reason given for this shortage across the board is the appeasement of employable villagers through the NREGA scheme, creating a nation of free-loaders. Adding to the problem are many other parallel schemes by State Governments giving free ration, in a way discouraging people to venture out for work… And even though many of the skill development schemes are free of cost, facilitators are finding it difficult to attract rural youth.
China is a very good example of how a developing economy moves up the value chain, as workers lose interest in basic work. Today equestrian apparels, is a new chapter for the Chinese and in this issue of StitchWorld we look closer at the market and the opportunities. Also on review are the technologies from various solution providers at the recently concluded GTE.
