Clothing industry productivity outstrips earnings

South African clothing workers have become more productive over the last few years, yet each year, they earn comparatively less per garment they produce, the Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers' Union (Sactwu) said on Monday, 23 April 2012.

"Recent data compiled by Productivity SA, shows that between 2005 and 2010, labour productivity for the sector has increased by 73%, far outstripping the 54% growth in real earnings over the same period," the union said, adding that Productivity SA used base data originally from Stats SA.

According to the union, the data confirmed the sentiment of local clothing workers that they were working harder, faster and more efficiently but had not seen the equivalent increases in their earnings.

"While the period 2005 to 2010 saw the most dramatic rise in productivity in the sector, clothing workers' productivity has in fact been increasing steadily without equivalent increases in real earnings since 1990.

"For example, between 1990 and 2005, productivity increased by 36% while clothing workers' real earnings increased by only about 2%. This information concretely refutes the right-wing fiction that local workers are apparently unproductive," Sactwu said.