Currently, the world is under a severe health crisis. No one knows how the world will be after Covid-19. But it will be different. Governments have issued measures to protect their citizens from Covid-19. On the other hand, these measures have come as a blow to many industries in the world. The clothing industry is one of the many lines of work that has been affected massively.

Covid-19 and Clothing Industry

A Must-Follow Preventive Measures

With the ongoing pandemic, many clothing factories have closed. The few factories that are running must change their usual operations. They must endorse the new procedures, which include following the preventive measures given by the authorities. Their workers must wear face masks, keep social distance, and wash hands with soap. Also, the factories should ensure that they get the employees’ body temperature regularly.

Ineffective Modes of Sales

As most governments encourage work from home, the retail clothing sector has closed their shops. They are encouraging online buying since the streets are empty. In the clothing business, the physical fitting of clothes is essential.

So, is an online business working? Well, people are in their homes with financial burdens. Many people are budgeting for food and taking care of their children with the little money they have. Buying clothes might be the last thing that comes to mind.

Retail Overstocking and Order Canceling

The reduced clothing demand has also led to overstocking in retailer’s stores. Dressmakers are worried that if they continue producing, the stores might get full and slow their cash flow. Therefore, they are canceling supply orders and delaying supply shipments. They aim to curb the struggle of selling and avoid the burden of overstocking.

Shift of Production

The clothing industry relies on other sectors such as textiles to keep up with their production. Currently, most textile companies are producing mask-making and preventive garments’ raw materials. That means the output of cloth raw materials has gone down by a significant percentage. Hence, clothing companies are now canceling clients’ orders due to reduced production.

However, some clothing companies are shifting their efforts from regular clothes to the production of PPE materials. A digital survey done by the ILO Siyare Program showed that 58% of cloth makers were willing to re-purpose their production to help curb this Covid-19 crisis.

Some of their products would be face masks, patient gowns, doctors’ protective clothes, and bed linens, among others. But, they would still need help in sourcing for machinery, materials, employee training, among others.

Loss of employment and Income

This industry employs over 60 million workers worldwide. That means that companies are overcrowded, and keeping social distance in clothing industries may be hard to follow. Thus, the management has to fire or temporarily suspend their workers to reduce their number. Also, the industry income has reduced by a considerable percentage; hence some workers go weeks without their salaries or worse still their salaries slashed by a certain percentage.

Coronavirus has led to millions of tailors losing their jobs. The nightmare is that most of these jobs have no social or financial insurance, as many consider them underground. Also, the low sales of garments are discouraging this line of work. If this Covid-19 trend keeps rising, we are going to witness a large number of unemployed dressmakers.

An Opportunity for the Fashion Industry

As fashion depends on the clothing industry, their low production and current city lockdowns haven’t discouraged them. So, many designers have seen this as an opportunity to change the face of the fashion industry. They have taken this time to concentrate on developing new fashion designs. You should be ready to see a big difference in the fashion and clothing industry on the other end of the pandemic.

The Conclusion

If the pandemic continues for a long time, the world clothing industry will be at a high risk of redundancy. Governments should aid in keeping these companies running by giving them contracts to keep them in business.