The Fashion Industry and Sweatshops
• In many industries, including the fashion industry, jobs have been lost in more economically developed countries because goods and clothes can be produced cheaply and more efficiently in the poorer parts of the world. Unfortunately, some of the working conditions are hard and have reached the rest of the world’s attention.
• What are sweatshops?
A sweatshop is a place where people work. The work is very hard and the place is not safe to work in. Many sweatshops are in poor countries but sweatshops are also found in rich countries where they often have people who are new to the country working in them or people who are not legal residents.
The amount of money people are paid in sweatshops is lower than the amount paid to workers in a richer country but is often higher than the worker would earn in their old jobs on farms and working in manual labour. Children may also work in sweatshops and they often make clothes and shoes.
• Why are many of the clothes sold in retail outlets in MEDC’s manufactured in factories in LEDC’s? How does this affect the quality and range of the clothes we buy?
Clothes sold in retail outlets in more economically developed countries are manufactured in factories in less economically developed countries. This is because clothes made in more economically developed countries are cheaply made in sweatshops with terrible working conditions. Sweatshops are horrible places to work in and it can be incredibly unsafe.
This is an example of cheap labour; inhabitants in less economically developed countries have no alternative other than to work for what is to us very little money.
The qualities of clothes manufactured in less economically developed countries are often found to be not as well made as clothes from other shops with higher prices.
This may because we are paying a lesser price therefore making the quality of the clothes not as good as others.
Workers in these shops work...