As Textiles Minister Smriti Irani settles in to her new job overseeing an industry that is India’s largest source of formal jobs, the government’s hope that it will continue to be an employment engine is under growing threat, as job-growth plateaus and exports wilt against Vietnamese and Bangladeshi competition.
The textile and apparels industry employs 105 million people directly and indirectly and is thought to have the potential to create 50 million more jobs by 2025, holding the key to growing unrest over India’s inability to create the million jobs it needs every month.
But a rising skills gap, falling exports, low productivity, rising debt and low foreign investment is jeopardising the target set for the textile and apparels sector: additional $30 billion in exports and 10 million additional jobs over the next three years.
Instead, textiles and apparels employment fell -0.11% in April-June 2015, rose 0.18% in July-September 2015 and 0.23% in October-December 2015, according to Labour Bureau estimates; and exports of cotton commodities, which account for 24% of textile & apparel exports, declined 34% in the last three years, according to data from United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade).
While exports of some commodities, such as knitted/crocheted and non-knitted/crocheted apparel and clothing, grew 12% and 7%, respectively, textile & apparel exports from India declined more than 7% between 2013-14 and 2015-16.
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