By Sivuyile Mangxamba
Closures have wreaked havoc with jobs in the clothing sector, Cape Town's biggest employer, with 19 companies shutting their doors and at least 2 249 jobs lost in the past 10 months alone.
The clothing sector, which employed 67 000 people in 1985, has shed 50 percent of posts - up to 33 000 jobs - over the past 15 years, as global competition started to bite.
The employer organisation, Cape Clothing Association, has attributed the drain of jobs in the Mother City to rising labour and factory rental costs coupled with an increase of illegally imported goods.
However, the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) said it was "absolutely not true" that labour costs had risen disproportionately.
Sactwu deputy general secretary Andre Kriel said: "Labour costs have kept pace with the rate of inflation.
"It is simply not true that labour costs have skyrocketed over the past few years. The real costs of wage increases to clothing employers in the Western Cape have been 6 percent and 1,87 percent in 2000 and 2001 respectively."
Gert van Zyl, director of the Cape Clothing Association, said at least 140 companies had either closed down or moved to sites in former homelands or other southern African states, such as Malawi, since 1991.
Sactwu said in the past 24 months alone, at least 33 963 jobs had been lost in the clothing and textile industry in South Africa, with the clothing sector losing a total of 22 756 jobs.
The union has attributed the number of job losses largely to the fast-tracked tariff programme, trade agreements concluded in SA Development Community countries, and
illegal imports and dumping.
Gordon Joffe, vice-chairman of the Clothing Federation of SA (Clofed), said a number of factory owners were disinvesting in big cities, including Cape Town, and some were opening firms in former homelands.
"There is a definite shift away from the metro to rural towns, where workers are less unionised," said Joffe.
The move has benefited Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal towns including Butterworth, Dimbaza and Newcastle.
"There is a huge supply of (cheap) labour in these areas," Joffe said.
To ease pressure on the struggling industry, Van Zyl said, new labour legislation and fewer regulations were needed in the sector.
In exports, the clothing industry has recorded growth, with R2-billion expected by the end of this year.
But Sactwu's Kriel said the sector continued to lose jobs at the rate of more than 1 400 a month.