BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN (ILO Online) – Almash, a 18-year girl from a village in the south of Kyrgyzstan, is standing in front of the factory gates. She is confused and upset. She visited eight factories today and did not find a job.
“I came all the way here because my family relied on me to earn some money. Now it seems I’ll have to go back home. I do not know what to tell my family. There are no jobs in the place where I live”, she says.
Almash is not the only one who cannot find a job or has lost it in the past six months. As a result of the economic crisis demand for garment industry products in Russia and Kazakhstan fell by 40 per cent. By February 2009, 20 per cent of the garment factories, mostly the smaller ones, had closed down. The trend is expected to continue and the industry faces a real jobs crisis.
As early as last year any young girl - even with only basic sewing skills - would have found a job at a garment factory. But today’s situation in the garment sector is totally different from that before the crisis started
After the country gained independence, ten large garment factories were replaced by more than a thousand small and medium-size enterprises and workshops with a staff of five to 80 workers. Very soon they found their niche in the market: using fabric and accessories from China, they started to produce ‘economy class clothing’, light clothing for low-income customers in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Since 2006, the annual growth rate in the industry was 125 per cent. According to the official statistics, the garment sector provided jobs for 160,000 workers, of which 80 per cent are women.
“Our estimates of the industry’s workforce are much higher – between 300,000 and 400,000 workers. They thus represent a large proportion of the country’s 2.4 million economically active people”, says Saparbek Asanov, president of the Kyrgyz Light Industry association, Legprom.
“The statistics do not cover thousands of workers in informal small and micro-enterprises, often located in the basements of residential buildings and even in private houses. These workplaces are informal and insecure, and working conditions there are far from perfect. But they are the only source of income for many young unskilled workers and their families, especially those coming to the big cities from the remote rural areas with widespread poverty and unemployment.”
The seamstress’ work is seasonal (the peak season is summer) but the salaries are high by local standards: lying between 6,000 and 8,000 Som (approximately USD 200) they are several times higher than the average wage in the country.
Will the Kyrgyz garment industry survive the crisis?
“Yes, if it manages to adjust to the new situation and create sustainable and competitive workplaces”, says Martina Lubyova, ILO Subregional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “The development of the textile and garment industry is one of the priorities of the Decent Work Country Programme, signed by the ILO and Kyrgyzstan, and we are actively working with our partners to introduce, through our projects, the relevant ILO tools and methodologies.”
Funded by the Dutch government, the ILO’s Boosting Youth Employment (BYE) project in Kyrgyzstan has a special focus on the textile industry where 70 per cent of workers are young people under 30.
The project aims to improve the workforce quality in the garment industry. Instead of the traditional 2-3 year vocational training course it offers the ILO’s competency based modular skills training (MST) programme to vocational schools. The MST programme prepares adequately skilled workers for the labour market in accordance with employers’ needs within a short period of time.
For those who wish to develop their entrepreneurial skills the ILO has introduced a Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) Programme. For employers the project plans to organize productivity and competitiveness training.
The crisis presents an opportunity to look for new markets. Following an initiative of the ILO project, a group of Dutch businessmen will visit Kyrgyzstan in September to discuss how to promote Kyrgyz products in Western Europe.
Occupational safety and health also remains a serious issue in this sector. During the peak season seamstresses have to work 12-hour shifts under harsh working conditions, with poor ventilation and lighting. After two to three years, a worker may lose 30-40 per cent of his or her eyesight. The accident rate is also very high. To improve the situation, the ILO will organize a series of risk management trainings at garment factories, with the view of further replicating the knowledge and experience to other enterprises.
According to the employers’ survey, only 35 per cent of large-size garment factories conclude contracts with all workers, and the majority of the smaller ones (with up to ten workers) do not conclude contracts at all. As a result, workers do not get unemployment and maternity benefits ( 80 per cent of workers are women), and are not entitled to sickness or accident insurance. The ILO works with the trade unions, supporting their campaign to organize workers at the enterprise level and to promote social dialogue.
The report of the ILO Director-General to the June 2009 session of the International Labour ConferenceNote 1 reflects the situation in Kyrgyzstan when it says: “The crisis has prompted a major policy rethinking everywhere. This is welcome, necessary and overdue. It is our collective responsibility to take a hard look at the failings of the recent past in order to build a better future.”
Or as Ljubov Ardamina, director of a knitwear factory in Bushkek, puts it: “The crisis has revealed many problems in our sector ... it is a time to critically analyse our work and make improvements, always seeing people as our first priority.”
Note 1 - Tackling the global jobs crisis - Recovery through decent work policies, Report of the Director-General (Report I(A)), International Labour Conference, 98th Session, Geneva, 2009.