India – Tirupur – Tamil Nadu – Shut Down and layoffs

For years, Tirupur kept its date with major global sporting events where T-shirts and jerseys knitted in the Tamil Nadu hosiery town catered to tens of thousands of sports fans. At the Euro 2012 soccer championship, though, Tirupur was missing from the action.

“We got orders for Euro T-shirts this year too but could not accept them because of the pricing and shortage of labour. The orders went to Bangladesh and Pakistan,” says C Udhaya Shankar of Sree Santhosh Garments.

The town’s 5,000 units with 2 lakh workers had emerged an international garment manufacturing hub over the last decade but the global slowdown, soaring yarn prices and the closure of 500 polluting dyeing units following a court order last year have dealt it a blow.

According to an official estimate, 25,000 families of migrant workers have returned home, over 100 textile units have shut and so have many restaurants. “To let” boards dangle outside houses, realty prices have plunged and state-owned liquor shops are struggling.

Exporters now send yarn to north India and Karnataka for dyeing, delaying supply to importers. And most global garment orders now go to Bangladesh and Pakistan because of lower wages and import duty concessions…

via Season of layoffs – Indian Express.