Virus impacts livelihood of most apparel workers

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the livelihood of the vast majority of the country's ready-made garment workers, according to a recent survey.
The survey, jointly done by the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM) and the Microfinance Opportunities (MFO), shows that the livelihood of nearly 82 per cent of the RMG workers has been affected by one way or the other by the pandemic. The findings of the survey was published in Dhaka on Monady.
It has found that some 58-per cent apparel workers are now sending money in either lesser volume than the pre-Covid period or sending the same infrequently to their families.
About 18 per cent of the respondents of the study said they have not sending any money since the outbreak of the disease.
However, some 22-per cent workers said the Covid-19 has cast no impact on the sending money back home while 2.0 per cent said they are sending either more money to their families or sending it more frequently.
Only 27 per cent of the respondents have made the transfer of fund outside household and 69 per cent of those transfers were sent to a family member in the past four weeks.
The findings of the survey come from interviews conducted over telephone covering a pool of 1,269 workers in on a number of occasions in August.
The SANEM and the MFO conducted the survey which is part of a series survey on the Covid-19 impact on garment workers.
These workers are employed in factories across the five main industrial areas of Bangladesh (Chattogram, Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Savar).
Just over three-quarters of the respondents are women.
The workers said some 25 per cent of the respondents spent their savings to cover the expenses during Covid-19.
Some 18 per cent borrowed money to cover expenses, 15 per cent defied quarantine rules to earn and 9.0 per cent relied on extended family assistance.
On the other hand, 4.0-per cent of those questioned moved to cheaper places and 3.0 per cent looked for another job during the pandemic.
The respondents said at least 1.0 per cent sold their land to cover expenses.
Meanwhile, 51-per cent respondents said prior to Covid-19, they used to send money to families, with 47 per cent of women doing so compared to 66 per cent of men.
Again, 58 per cent of them are still sending money regularly, 33 per cent do so occasionally. However, 69 per cent of those transfers were sent to a family member.
About their control over earnings the respondents send to their households, 58 per cent said it was some other family member and 42 per cent said they themselves were decision-makers.
The survey shows 89 per cent of the respondents migrated at least once, for certain reason and 91 per cent of women migrated compared to 83 per cent of men.
Eighty-one per cent migrants said they had migrated for a work-related purpose and 64 per cent of them said they had migrated just once.
The survey was part of a project styled 'Garment Worker Diaries' that collected regular, credible data on work hours, income, expenses and financial tool use of workers in the global apparel and textile supply chain.
The project aimed to gather data from government policy decisions, collective bargaining, and factory and brand initiatives related to improving the lives of workers.
It began in 2016 when the MFO, a global non-profit, in collaboration with local research firms in Bangladesh, India and Cambodia, collected data from 180 women in each country every week for a year.
The goal of the project was to collect and disseminate data in five apparel producing countries by 2021.
The data is expected to result in a major improvement in the transparency of the global supply chain.

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