DTI Economics Paper No. 2: A comparative study of the British and Italian Textile and Clothing Industries.

Commissioned by: Association of Suppliers to the British Clothing Industry Conference, Hucknell, Nottingham, February 2004 During the 1990s the Italian clothing and textiles industry grew while the British, French and German textile and clothing industries declined by 40%. In 2001 the Italian textiles & clothing sector was three times larger than the British, accounting for 11.7% of Italian manufacturing output but only 3.3% in Britain. In 2000 Italian fabric exports were 15 times that of the UK. The study was conducted in response to a recommendation by the Textiles and Clothing Strategy Group (TCSG), comprising UK industry, trade unions, Higher Education and the DTI. The purpose of the study was to account for these differences, assess relative merits against value for money and identify best practice in the Italian industry. The methodology comprised comparative analysis and case studies of British and Italian textile mills and tailoring manufacturers, based on my initial recommendations. We visited 5 textile mills in Yorkshire and 15 in Italy plus 3 factories in each country. I conducted a detailed comparative technical analysis of the construction of suit jackets against 13 devised criteria, a number of interviews,compared technologies, equipment and manufacturing methods across all factories, against 8 criteria, drawing on my specialist knowledge and experience as a menswear clothing technologist. The technical reports I compiled formed a section of the final report. Findings were presented to the Clothing Strategy Group and published by the DTI as their Economic Paper No 2 . I made further presentations to industry and academic groups including ASBCI, FCDE, The Textile Society, Savile Row Tailors Association, and LSE. Other outcomes were a publication in the Journal of the Textile Society Text, an article in Selvedge magazine and contributions to the Encyclopaedia of Clothing by Thomson Gale. As a result of this research further consultancy projects have been conducted with the Industry Forum and ASBCI

Outstanding Issues Remain

The Clean Clothes Campaign’s sixth update regarding the Spectrum factory collapse on April 11, 2005, in Bangladesh

Job Creation in the Manufacturing Revival

[Excerpt] After rebounding from the 2007-2009 recession, U.S. manufacturing output has grown little since the second half of 2014. Over the same period, employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector has been flat. These trends defy expectations that forces such as higher labor costs in the emerging economies of Asia, heightened concern about the risk of disruptions to long, complex supply chains, and the development of inexpensive domestic supplies of natural gas would bring a surge of factory production in the United States. The health of U.S. manufacturing is a subject of ongoing interest in Congress. Numerous bills are introduced in each session to encourage capital investment, support training of workers for manufacturing jobs, increase research and development related to manufacturing, and strengthen mandates for the use of domestic goods in federally funded projects and programs. Proponents of such efforts often associate increased factory activity with the creation of jobs for workers without higher education. Evidence suggests, however, that even strong growth in manufacturing output could well have only modest impact on job creation, and is unlikely to increase demand for workers with lower levels of education