90% of Vietnamese garment workers could lose their jobs due to automation

(Baonghean.vn) - According to a recent report by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the jobs of nearly 90% of Cambodian and Vietnamese workers in the garment and footwear industry could be affected by automated production lines or robotic sewing machines.

Workers on a production line in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Photo: AP.

In ASEAN countries, 9 million people – mostly young women – are dependent on jobs in the garment and footwear industries, which the ILO has identified as vulnerable to losing their jobs to new labor forces such as automation.

Automatic sewing machines are unlikely to appear in factories in Asia, but are being installed in destination markets such as Europe or the US. This is considered a major threat, and the ILO has urged ASEAN countries to plan for diversification to avoid stumbling blocks in the development process.

Workers in the textile industry often have low incomes, do hard work, and are at risk of lung diseases, work accidents, and fires. Now there is the added danger of being replaced by automated machines that are faster, cheaper, and easier to control.

Companies are interested in automation because of competition in quality, price and risk reduction, said Jae-Hee Chang, co-author of the ILO report. He said that to avoid unemployment, garment factories in ASEAN should change their current “export-oriented” model and become suppliers to ASEAN’s growing middle class.

Adidas has announced that it will begin making shoes using automated machines at a factory in Germany in 2017. The factory will employ just 160 workers and will have two automated lines for making soles and uppers, a plan that Adidas sees as a game-changer.

Currently, an Adidas shoe takes up to 18 months from concept to sale. However, the company hopes to shorten the process to just five hours, and customers will be able to design their own products in-store.

Responding to questions about the potential unemployment of footwear workers in Asia, Adidas representatives said that the number of products produced by the factory using robots is only a modest 500,000 pairs compared to the company's annual production capacity of 301 million pairs of shoes worldwide. With plans to increase production by 30 million pairs of shoes per year, it seems that the impact of automated factories on Adidas' labor needs is insignificant.

While automation in the textile and footwear industries may not happen overnight, is there a need for a new way of thinking about this change? Reducing the workweek from 40 to 32 hours and adding weekends could be a way to distribute work more evenly across society.

Although automation is predicted to have a negative impact on the labor demand of the textile industry, the popularity of this trend will not come immediately. However, early analysis, assessment and planning will help textile enterprises as well as the government support workers to cope with future changes.

Phan Hoang Vu

(According to Guardian)