Notwithstanding the fact that the Government had come up with stimulus package to help the industry pay the workers’ wages, around 25 per cent of the apparel manufacturing units that received the taxpayer-backed stimulus package, had shed jobs, which was in breach of the conditions, as agreed upon by the factory owners.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has underlined this while adding that garment factory owners agreed they would not lay off workers while availing the stimulus fund even as it went on to add that laying-off the workers thus indicates that stimulus package could not guarantee jobs.
The CPD Research Director Khondaker Golam Moazzem shared the findings of the survey — the survey was carried out on 102 garment employers, 301 employed workers and 100 unemployed workers in Dhaka and Gazipur districts even as several stakeholder interviews with representatives of brands, workers and employers and Government officials, were conducted to complement the analysis — at a webinar titled ‘Corporate Accountability of the RMG sector in view of Covid-19 Pandemic: Challenges in Ensuring Workers’ Well-being’ recently even as the survey underlined that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic was comparatively higher on the workers who lost jobs and remained unemployed while underlining that April and May of 2020 saw the highest job loss, even though the workers lost jobs in all other months as well.
It may be mentioned here Bangladesh Government came up with a Taka 10,500 crore stimulus package to help the garment industry pay wages and allowances to the workers since the COVID-19 crisis hit the country in March last year even as garment manufacturers again sought funds from the Government to pay workers’ salaries and allowances for three months from April to June this year.
