Garment factory workers
While 49 garment factories shuttered their doors, 70 opened in the first nine months of the year, which saw 21 percent export growth for the sector, according to data released this week from the ministries of Labor and Commerce.
Still, growth levels next year are not expected to return to those seen before the financial crisis and may not lead to proportional job increases, experts said.
Neou Seiha, senior researcher at the Economic Institute of Cambodia, said he expected lower growth next year than this year, as the recovery continues.
“This year is the recovery period and the pace of growth is faster, but next year in 2011 and 2012 the growth will be slower,” he said.
Last week, Finance Minister Keat Chhon said export of garments and textiles would reach $2.8 billion figure reached in 2008.
Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said export growth could reach 15 percent next year, as the country benefits from rule changes in the European Union’s Everything but Arms trade scheme for least-developed countries.
He said even with an increase in export, it would not directly translate to a corresponding spike in jobs and factories. Factories, more and more, are producing more expensive, complicated items, though the added value does not require a proportional amount of workers.
“Obviously, the factories are moving up the value chain so the value of the exports produced in going up. So looking at the value of exports does not give you a complete picture,” he said.
Tuomo Poutainen, chief technical adviser at the International Labor Organization, said that in the first half of the year, 20,000 jobs had been created in the sector, leaving a total of 300,000 jobs and 248 factories.
ILO statistics released earlier this year estimated that in April 2008, a few months before the onset of the crisis, there were 360,000 jobs.
He said he expected jobs to catch up with exports, as there is generally a lag as factories attempt to find skilled workers and as factories emerge from the crisis with a better-trained more efficient staff.
He said that factories also may be waiting to see how many orders they receive.
“The recovery from the crisis can also be a bit tentative,” he said.
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