A mass exodus of young workers triggered by the Conscription Law is severely impacting Myanmar’s garment industry, with factories unable to accept orders due to labor shortages.
Garment factories are reporting a 20% drop in production as recruiting new workers and finding skilled labor becomes increasingly difficult.
“The worker shortage is a constant challenge,” said one garment factory owner. “The industry has reverted to its early days, when most workers were involved in farming. They would leave en masse during the planting and harvest seasons, only returning to factories after the harvest. It seems the industry has regressed 15 years.”
Rising living costs coupled with forced military recruitment have forced many garment workers to seek jobs abroad.
“Many staff, especially skilled workers, have left, seriously impacting production,” explained another factory owner.
“Demand for skilled workers is high in other countries, so they have left. Orders keep coming in, but we can’t accept them because we have no workers.”
The labor shortage means more overtime for the existing workforce. However, excessive overtime seriously impacts their productivity, resulting in shrinking production and increased costs, factory owners explained.
One factory owner said: “If a customer places an order and we can’t accept it, they might not seek our business in future. But we face huge difficulty finding laborers. A buyer who, say, wants to place an order for 500,000 pieces will usually want to do business with a single factory rather than split the order among 10 factories. This means small factories can’t get orders now.”
He added that electricity rationing is also taking a toll on the garment sector. As a result, around 60 percent of small factories that employ fewer than 500 workers have ceased operations, he added.
A garment worker in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Industrial Zone told The Irrawaddy that many skilled workers had quit at his factory, forcing the owner to fill the vacancies with raw recruits.
“The work rate has declined, and experienced workers have to do more overtime. I heard that two male employees from my factory have been snatched [by the regime for conscription] lately.”
Workers are reluctant to do overtime amid reports of junta officials grabbing young men off the street for conscription. However, experienced workers are being forced to do overtime, with heavier workloads. Many are also struggling to make ends meet due to the rising cost of living.
Faced with an economic crisis and dwindling hard currency reserves since the 2021 coup, the regime has taken various measures to reduce its US dollar exposure. As well as limiting imports, it has forced businesses to convert their dollar earnings to kyats at the official exchange rate, which is far lower than the market rate.
Since October, foreign currency earnings from the garment industry have been converted at 3,600 kyats per US dollar, significantly below market rates, making it difficult to increase pay for employees, said a garment factory owner.
Most factory workers who fled the country following activation of the Conscription Law were male. However, the possibility that conscription will be expanded to females is spurring more women to leave for jobs abroad, said Ma Ei, spokesperson for the Federation of General Workers Myanmar.
“When workers are scarce, you might think that employers would try to retain existing workers by guaranteeing them full labor rights and wages. But instead, employers are just recruiting child workers, and experienced workers have to handle heavier workloads to fill the gap. They are forced to work overtime under threat of dismissal. And they are forced to work unpaid overtime when targets are not met in normal working hours,” she said.
The labor rights violations have triggered monthly strikes across all sectors, with industrial action reported in at least six factories every month. Strikes are more common at garment factories, Ma Ei added.
Labor rights activists and workers say the junta’s Labor Ministry ignores their voice during industrial disputes, listening only to employers and factory operators.
