More than 50,000 Cambodian garment workers have lost their jobs as struggling companies have made cutbacks to try to stay afloat while others have closed, Radio Free Asia has learned.
To date, 10 Cambodian factories have completely shut down and 500 others have suspended production since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dec. 2019.
The government has cited the war between Russia and Ukraine as the main reason for the industry’s inability to recover from downturns it experienced during the pandemic and other woes. But experts say a better explanation is because Cambodia has lost some of its preferential trade advantages with the European Union due to human rights concerns – which means higher tariffs on exports – and that the country risks losing more.
In response to the company closures and layoffs, the Cambodia’s National Employment Agency, under the Ministry of Labor, held a career expo Friday in the southwestern province of Kampong Speu, where it invited jobseekers to apply for work at five different factories. The plan is to hire at least 5,250 people, the ministry said in a statement.
Kem Sopeng, a garment union representative who has been fired from his job for the past three months told RFA’s Khmer Service that he will not apply for those jobs because he thinks the new factories are not stable and they likely won’t respect workers’ rights.
“The working conditions in garment factories have not improved over the past 10 years,” he said, adding that he has been working in the sector for the past seven years, and has been abused and exploited.
“I just made enough to get by. If I couldn’t work, I would starve,” he said. “The work is just enough to live another day.”
Huge pool of workers
Ath Thun of the Cambodian Labour Confederation said he welcomed the government’s efforts to get the laid off workers back into factories, but he urged the ministry of expenditures to provide more employment opportunities to agricultural workers too.
"It is very difficult to seek employment because too many people are out of jobs,” he said. “They are trying to work in illegal establishments and the entertainment sector.”
Many rural Cambodians also venture to large cities like Phnom Penh in search of work, only to quickly burn through their meager savings and take on debt, said Ath Thun.
He said the government should also fix its issues with the U.S. and the European Union so they can be in good standing with their respective preferential trade status schemes.
