CO Data

Faces and Figures: Who Makes Our Clothes?

From growing and processing cotton and other fibres to the cut-make-trim stage, fashion and textiles involves millions of people – roughly one in eight workers globally. Include the informal sector and this total is even higher.

Apparel production can often conjure up images of factory workers on sewing machine production lines. This is only part of the picture. Around the world, roughly one in eight workers is involved in the fashion and textiles industry in a huge variety of jobs.

These workers may be farmers growing cotton or other crops for raw fibre. They may be operating machinery that processes raw material into yarns or fabrics, or the dyeing vats that are part of treating a textile – or they may be managing p…

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22 May 2018
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