Myanmar’s garment industry is preparing to cut an estimated 60,000 jobs this month. More than 1,000 of them are at Sunrise (Myanmar) Fashion Co. Ltd located in Yangon, most of whom receive a daily wage of $2.2 per day.
Sunrise, which has a Chinese owner, makes clothing for the Japanese labels Burtle, Zerostage and Closshi.
Monitoring by labour organisations, cited by IndustriALL Global Union, shows that in August workers at no fewer than twelve garment plants across the Yangon and Bago regions stopped work as they were pressing for pay rises that keep pace with the escalating cost of living.
In Yangon, Teng Hui (Myanmar), which has been in operation since 2013 and has supplied Sweden’s H&M, announced in September that it would shut because fresh orders had dried up which will leave more than 3,000 people without work.
Roughly 17 Yangon factories working under the Cutting, Making and Packing (CMP) model have formally notified the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) of imminent closure.
The MIC is the body charged with checking, assessing and sanctioning domestic and overseas investment proposals.
According to labour rights groups, the principal driver is economic deterioration following the 2021 military coup, which brought sanctions on the regime.
“Over the past five years, they added, the industry has endured falling new orders, scarce skilled labour and raw-material shortages,” DVB reported.
The Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA) said exports of garments have fallen steadily since 2022 and estimates the slide has cut Myanmar’s export earnings by about US $750 million.
