The apparel industry has lost 37,000 jobs in 10 years, and no one cares

Camaïeu, Cop.Copine, San Marina, Kookaï… mid-range fashion is slowly but surely collapsing in France, for multiple reasons.

But these failing companies bring with them the elimination of thousands of jobs that previously worked in their physical stores. However, these are positions occupied mainly by women, sometimes poorly qualified.

From 2013 to 2023, 37 thousand jobs will disappear in the clothing sector

The world done the math this massacre that intensifies year after year. In 2014, 1,350 positions were eliminated La Redoute. In 2017, 141 stores The Shoe Room close, and lead to 730 layoffs, and the same goes for Mi M with 162 closures and 791 layoffs. In 2018, Happychic (Jules, Brice, Bizzbee) closes 88 stores, 466 layoffs. In 2019, THAT renovated, closed 14 stores and cut 115 jobs, and the following year closed 30 more stores and laid off 200 more. In 2020, The entrance closes 454 stores and cuts 1,555 jobs, Celio closes 102 and eliminates 383 positions. In 2021, Cotton counter is bought and 200 jobs are lost.

And since the pandemic, things have accelerated: Camaïeu means that 2,600 positions will be eliminated at the end of 2022; San Marina, 680 in February 2023; Kookaï, 150 at the end of 2023; Minelli, 392 in January 2024. Overall, according to the Trade Alliance, we are talking aboutat least 4,000 jobs lost in 2023 alone and 37,000 cuts in the last ten years. While several brands are still hanging by a thread, these terrifying figures risk increasing ever more rapidly.

Because the crisis in the clothing sector is only just beginning

The traditional clothing market, in fact, is losing turnover, increasingly challenged by ultra-fast fashion giants such as Primark and Shein. Their success goes hand in hand with the decline in the standard of living of the French, who see single mothers and their children on the front line, INSEE finds. As the income of the richest rises, of course, these violent inequalities widen further.

The clothing sector also pays the price for the multiplication of its outlets from the 1980s to the 2010s, without any correlation with the purchasing power of the general public. The Commerce Alliance summarizes this absurdity with very telling figures: “ Between 2007 and 2013, the retail workforce continued to increase by 8%, while household consumption decreased by 9%. “.

The fashion workforce: women, dispersed and despised, which complicates the mobilizations

It was therefore necessary to wait until 2015 for the big brands to stop the rush to open new stores and even begin the first employment protection plans. Buthe Covid pandemic and its confinement have accelerated the decline of the most vulnerable, while the French increasingly turn to second-hand goods, abandoning traditional brands even further.. Many of the latter survived the confinement thanks to state-guaranteed loans (PGE). But today they struggle even more to survive inflation and the explosion of energy prices weighing even more on the French budget. And it makes it even more expensive to manage too many increasingly deserted physical stores. Who still has the time, desire and budget to go window shopping when you can do it online, find good deals, and understand in two clicks whether you can find your size or not.

Shop closures and job protection plans are therefore linked to the indifference of politicians, but also of public opinion.. Because it is not a single large factory in which all the employees would be gathered in the same place, so as to be able to more easily alarm local opinion and facilitate collective mobilization. NO, these are a multitude of shops spread across France, full of possibilities for mobilization. And this,an essentially female, low-skilled workforce, and often also mothers, sometimes isolated, who therefore have less time and material means to demonstrate in favor of their own fate. Perhaps this can also be added to this the stigma of working in fashion, a sector widely despised by the general public who only sees uselessness and pollution.