Here is MFO’s latest post in our Garment Worker Diaries blog series on workerdiaries.org: Employment and Factory Status Update
In April 2020, much of the RMG sector in Bangladesh shut down. The workers participating in the GWD study reported very few hours worked during that month.
The basic story workers are telling us is that by far May presented the most work-related challenges, indicating that factories themselves were also at their most strained in that same month. Subsequent months show the negative effects of COVID-19 dissipating rather rapidly however as workers reported far fewer instances of employment issues.
While the situation is not gloomy, neither is it rosy, as the rate of worker-reported employment issues ticked back up again in September. The remaining months in the year will tell us far more about what if any lingering impact COVID-19 has had on the industry.
Please check out the full blog and let us know if you have any questions, comments, concernsĀ or ideas. And especially, do let us know if there is anything about garment workers themselves that you’d like us to ask them. You can write your questions to us at info@mfopps.org