According to a recent report from The International Labor Organization, more than two-thirds of Southeast Asia’s 9.2 million textile and footwear factory workers could lose their jobs to machines.
Though Asia’s textile and garment industries are notorious for their meager pay, the wages are enough that most workers in the region have been able to thrive (or at least, survive) relative to their countries’ standards of living. However, recent increases in competition have put pressure on factory owners to boost their productivity, without raising their prices, which has led many to introduce new, automated technologies to their production lines.
These technologies, such as automated fabric cutters and 3D printers, could be the beginning of the end for sweatshop-style labor in Asia, as they greatly reduce the tedium and many of the dangers associated with garment-making. At the same time, as more machines are introduced, there’s less of a need for actual human workers, which means the burgeoning middle class created by Asia’s garment industry could be facing major job losses.
To read more about the automation of Asian sweatshops, head over to Bloomberg.
