The supply chain ripple effect: How COVID-19 is affecting garment workers and factories in Asia and the Pacific
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered government lockdowns, collapsed consumer demand, and disrupted imports of raw materials, battering the Asia Pacific garment industry especially hard, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The UN labour agency highlighted that in the first half of 2020, Asian imports had dropped by up to 70 per cent. Moreover, as of September, almost half of all garment supply chain jobs, were dependent on consumers living in countries where lockdown conditions were being most tightly imposed, leading to plummeting retail sales.
