Change is Coming to the Textile Industry

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The U.S. January jobs report was surprisingly strong, adding 467,000 positions. In addition to the "Great Resignation" phenomenon, it was expected that jobs numbers would be more in the 150,000 range. In addition, average wages rose 5.7%. This has led some pundits describing the trend as "The Great Upgrade" – many employees leaving existing jobs not to stay home, but rather, to find jobs with higher pay and a better work/life balance.

But the job growth is not equal across all industry segments. And many in the textiles and apparel industry still struggle to find enough workers. There is a lack of skilled workers in North America due to the outsourcing to Asia and other parts of the world that began in the 1970s.

Now, with new technology in place and increased pressure on the industry due to sustainability and supply chain issues, brands have become more interested in reshoring at least some of the production.

The good news is that while there is a shortage of skilled labor, there is also an increase in programs designed to train those workers and to attract new talent to an industry that still gets a bad rap from potential employees. These perceptions are remnants from the days when factories were highly manual, not particularly clean and classified as sweat shops.

We spoke to a few of the organizations that are working to grow the textiles and apparel presence in North America. 

Fashion Revolution

A significant issue for the fashion industry is treatment – or mistreatment -- of workers and suppliers. Fashion Revolution, a global organization with a very active U.S. chapter, is working to change that, campaigning for a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry through research, education, collaboration, mobilization and advocacy.

The organization was formed in response to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 people and injured many more on April 24, 2013. Every year, the organization hosts a global Fashion Revolution Week during the week of April 24 to bring more visibility to continuing issues in the fashion industry, as well as to highlight the positive developments within the industry.

“What we are all trying to do is bring education about what's happening in the fashion industry and how, when we pay $5 for a t-shirt, somebody else is paying with their lives," said Kathleen Grevers, head of the U.S. program.

The organization is autonomous and does not align itself with any brands or receive funding from them, although it works to educate brands and provide guidance about improving conditions in the industry. Their advocacy work also extends to government and regulatory agencies. This includes helping to pass the California Garment Worker Protection Act in 2021, intended to result in fair wages and improved working conditions for garment workers.

Education in the Sewing Trades

A great example of a program designed to add talent to the sewing trades is Detroit-based Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center (ISAIC) headed by Jennifer Guarino.

The organization trains people on traditional skills as well as skills that are required for advanced competitive manufacturing. It includes a full-scale manufacturing facility where apprentices do on-the-job training. They manufacture for brands, but they also pilot innovation on-site, partnering with innovators to try their ideas in a use-case facility. This is designed to align the commercialization of innovation with the skills that are needed to deploy new technology and approaches into the marketplace, as well as to find new ways to scale.

The Center also positions industry careers in a different way than they were in the past. There is a starting point, of course, but there is also a path forward in what are now high-tech jobs. Historically, the industry did not invest in the careers of people making the products, and those were largely women and people of color.

“What we do from the get-go is to understand their interest and develop career paths for them," Guarino said. "On Fridays, we don’t do any production; we do continuous training.”

In addition to on-site training, ISAIC also has partnerships with a variety of post-secondary educational institutions enabling apprentices to take classes that are aligned with their interests.

“We are preparing them to become business owners," she said. "Our model is to eventually have for-profit, worker-owned factories, where we can flip the power pyramid so that it's really positioning workers to truly benefit from growth, and to also set them up to be the masters of advanced manufacturing.”

Another approach to making worker training more accessible is Shimmy, an AI-powered mobile app designed to upskill and reskill garment manufacturing workers. In addition to training sewing talent, founder Sarah Krasley has also introduced training modules for sewing machine repair personnel. It features game-based learning that drives better engagement and retention.

BMC Fashion: Modern Apparel Manufacturing in Action

In addition to workforce development initiatives, the students in these programs ultimately need places to work if they are not choosing to start their own businesses right away. There are a number of innovative factories popping up in North America that offer careers to these folks and/or take advantage of existing skills based in their respective areas.

One example is SAI-TEX America in Los Angeles, a cut-and-sew shop focused on denim products that leverages the LA-area skills base and has implemented sustainable technology in its manufacturing processes.

Kirby Best, located in Arizona, is a long-time proponent of on-demand manufacturing, who ran Lightning Source for a time, an innovative on-demand manufacturer of books. He recently turned his attention to the fashion industry and launched Bespoke Manufacturing Company, or BMC Fashion, in February 2022.

From his experience with a previous on-demand manufacturing plant he operated in Alabama, Best takes the process to an entirely new level. It provides a clean, sustainable work environment and an opportunity for employees to learn new skills and contribute to the fashion manufacturing model of the future. 

Accelerating, But Never Fast Enough

Driven by consumer demand for more sustainability and brands working to mitigate the supply chain challenges, change to the fashion industry is coming. On the brand and retailer side, innovative digital shopping experiences and made-to-measure technologies are reducing inventory risk, improving sustainability and becoming more responsive to rapidly changing market demands. However, skilled labor continues to be a barrier.

We hope that the programs highlighted here, and many others, will begin to address these shortages and attract new talent to the industry. It is the only way the textiles and apparel industry can truly move into the 21st century. It must drive change to create happier, healthier and more rewarding careers for its workers, while reshoring a growing volume of manufacturing to North America and doing its part to address the climate crisis.