Editorial

Citation

Jones, R.M. (2005), "Editorial", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 9 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jfmm.2005.28409caa.001

Editorial

Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss (George Orwell).

In Volume 8.3 we reviewed the changes, which have taken place in the apparel manufacturing industry in a range of European countries. In the case of the UK the short period of time, which has elapsed, since the UK report was written has witnessed a further dramatic collapse in the size of the sector (as measured by employment) in the UK. This decline has to be seen in the context of changes in the size of the manufacturing sector as a whole. In the period 1997-2004 some 700,000 jobs were lost from manufacturing – a fall of approximately 17 per cent (ONS, 2004). This did attract some comment in the press (Manning, 2004). In the case of the apparel industry the fall was from 13,400 to just over 46,000 – a fall of just over 66 per cent. The reduction between 1988 and 2004 was 79 per cent! There has been some slow down in the decline in more recent periods but the falls are still pretty impressive (if that is the right word) for the most recent periods e.g. 1998-2004 it was 61 per cent; for 2002-2004 it was 45 per cent. This has occurred with, as far as I can tell, virtually no comment in the press or from politicians – the virtual extinction of what had still been until 20 years ago still a substantial employer has taken place with, it seems, nobody noticing or caring. It is also interesting to note that in 2003 the UK Government allocated €52 million to 12 coal mines in an effort to stop mines closing (Conway, 2003) which is in sharp contrast to the amount allocated to the entire apparel sector in 2000 as was the alleged €84 million allocated to one ship building company, Swan Hunter (Hope and Carlin, 2005). The contrast with the apparel sector could not be more stark than that with the motor industry which announced in February 2005 that one company (Nissan) was to invest €223 millions in the UK to build one model of car and was expected to have received from the UK Government, since 1984 a total of €179 millions (English, 2005). It is not hard to see from the figures quoted in this article for UK car exports why the Government favours car production in the UK over apparel production. In fact one of the most telling indicators of the collapse of apparel production within the UK is the dramatic fall in exports of apparel, which started in 1998. Over a longish period it had been possible to argue (Jones, 2000; Jones and Hayes, 2004) that the export performance of the UK apparel industry had been quite respectable but after 1998 exports started to fall after many years of steady increase – between 1998 and 2003 UK apparel exports fell by 22 per cent (ONS, 2004). It cannot be coincidental that this decline parallels the severe drop in employment and output, which has been identified (Jones, 2000) as marking a new period in the evolution of the industry in the UK. In the same period the number of enterprises in the sector fell by almost 50 per cent (ONS, 2002). It is not possible to tell if the fall in employment and output has been caused mainly by a move to offshore production or mainly by firms simply closing down.

I realise, of course, that it can be argued that the demise of the apparel sector in the UK is simply a manifestation of a normal process of change which affects all developed economies as they mature and evolve. Nevertheless, I suspect that it would come as something of a shock to most people to learn that in 2004 that the entire manufacturing sector now employs just three million people (ONS, 2004) and apparel manufacturing less than 50,000. The apparel sector in the UK now employs roughly 12 per cent of those employed in Real Estate activities, for example. It is also interesting to note that as the total number of people employed in apparel manufacture has collapsed the long established domination of the labour force by women has disappeared – there are now more men employed in the industry than women. This presumably reflects the closure of the sewing room in the rush offshore. On a priori grounds this might have been expected to raise productivity per head within the remaining labour force as the so-called "clever" jobs remain based in the UK but strangely this does not seemed to have happened in that productivity fell from a base figure of 100 in 1995 to 68.7 in 2001 ONS (2003). The index of output (based on 1985 = 100) had fallen to 45.6 by 2004 (ONS).

I realise that the size of a sector can be measured by other indicators (although in a labour intensive sector employment is probably a good indicator) but all other indicators of size such as output, investment and the number of enterprises in the sector all show sharp declines, as well as is shown in data from the Annual Business Inquiry in the UK (ONS, 2002). I also appreciate that some people would argue that the narrow definition of the apparel industry in the official statistics (as SIC 18 in the UK) is underestimating the importance of the industry to the economy because various other activities, which are clustered around the manufacturing process, are counted under other headings. However, in light of the extreme nature of the collapse in employment in apparel manufacture I do wonder if this approach has any real merit – there must come a time when the cluster itself ceases to be viable as the core is hollowed out. The cluster has to cluster around something solid e.g. a case could, I feel, be more sensibly be made for a cluster around technical textiles. In the case of the so-called apparel cluster there must surely be a concern over a loss of critical mass i.e. that events deteriorate to a point where it is simply not viable for the clustering activities to see a sufficient volume of business to support them and critical skills start to be lost.

Traditionally the academic literature on job loss (Jones, 2000) has argued that the role of imports in causing job loss in clothing has been subservient to the role played either by productivity increase and/or a lack of demand but in the current period this cannot be sustained – there is no evidence at all of a lack of demand in that year on year sales of apparel have been expanding at two to three times the expansion in all sales while, as has been stated above, productivity has been falling. As is well known the main instrument for controlling the rate of increase of apparel imports from the developing to the developed world expired in 2005. As a matter of record trade liberalisation is normally followed by an increase in imports – we have the evidence of several countries who have in the past liberalised trade in apparel such as Australia, Sweden and Norway, for example. The key word in EU textile and apparel trade policy is liberalisation and all the statements of policy so far published emphasise that the question of achieving international competitiveness is down to companies and that no substantial sector specific governmental support or aid can be expected (http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/textile). This raises the uncomfortable question of how far can the reduction in employment (and the size of the sector) in the UK be expected to go? There will always be a need for a quick response capacity and the ability to produce short runs of production. In addition, certain sectors such as work wear seem to have remained relatively resistant to imports. However, there are so many powerful forces pulling in the opposite direction that it is difficult to predict the eventual outcome e.g. it has been reported (Hall, 2004) that M + S plans to drastically reduce its domestic supply base in favour of direct sourcing. It is true, of course, that global political forces may one day move in the direction of making reliance on Asian, especially Chinese, sourcing risky (AFP/Getty, 2004) but it does seem clear that the survival strategy of choice for the majority of UK based apparel manufacturers remains offshore production. It has traditionally been assumed that this shift would be confined to semi-skilled work but it cannot be assumed that the emerging economies will forever be content to assume a role as simply making-up centres leaving the so-called higher value added work to the developed world. According to ALS Consulting future outsourcing may well expand to incorporate professional skills, such as design. (Aldrick, 2004). Where this leaves non-corporate institutions linked to apparel manufacture (such as training and educational establishments) in terms both of recruitment policy and course structure and provision is less clear.

Richard M. Jones