According to a report by Lesotho’s local media “Sunday Express” on December 7, denim clothing manufacturing company C Y Garment Factory is expected to lay off 2,600 people and officially close the factory at the end of the month. Currently, there are approximately 300,000 unemployed people in Lesotho. The layoffs at C Y Garment Factory will exacerbate Lesotho’s unemployment problem, and the economy, already sluggish due to the epidemic, will be hit hard again.
C&asdfssdfsmp;Y Garment Factory is part of the Nianxing Textile Group, which owns 4 textile factories in Lesotho and employs about 10,000 workers. In September this year, Nianxing International, a subsidiary of the group, laid off 2,500 employees. Last year, the group shut down its subsidiary Honor International and repatriated 1,500 workers.
Government data shows that before last year’s “wave of layoffs”, there were 45,000 factory workers across the country. According to statistics from the Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC), due to the epidemic, more than 6,000 manufacturing sector workers lost their jobs between March 2020 and March 2021. Including the layoffs of Nianxing International and C&asdfssdfsmp;Y Garment Factory, this number will rise to 22,100 by the end of this month. This also means that about 25% of the factory workforce has lost their jobs since last year.
The main reason for the closure of C&asdfssdfsmp;Y Garment Factory is still the sharp shrinkage in orders caused by the epidemic, which also officially ended its 31-year operating career in Lesotho. Masdfssdfskasskole, deputy secretary-general of the National Garment and Textile Federation Union, said it was frustrating and heavy that thousands of Lesotho people would lose their jobs. A C&Y garment factory worker revealed that the factory is conducting layoffs in stages. Workers in the cutting and sewing departments have been sent home, and workers in the washing and packaging departments will leave their jobs before the end of this month. Many workers in the factory are women, who are the breadwinners of their families, and layoffs are an unbearable disaster for them.
Although LNDC has taken the lead in setting up a high-level team led by Trade and Industry Minister Molaspo to address investor concerns, the wave of layoffs has not stopped. The Lesotho Textile Exporters Association (LTEA) has warned that its members are considering cutting thousands of jobs as earlier wage increases have made business at factories unsustainable. In July this year, the government requested a 14% salary increase for textile industry workers, while wages in other industries increased by 9%. Although a salary increase can alleviate the pressure of rising living costs on workers to a certain extent, it is tantamount to a disguised form of “killing the goose that lays eggs”, and textile factories, an important source of economy and employment in Lesotho, have been severely hit. </p
