Clothing industry badly hit by global demand decline

In less than a year, the clothing industry lost 53,000 staff, and the average number of employees per plant has been reduced to hundreds or even tens of people, while four years ago, there were thousands of people working in the manufacturing sections of plants. In the town of Roman, four plants that had 50 to 100 employees have shut down operations over the last four or five months. They include shirts manufacturer Comoconf, whose main client was Dolce & Gabbana and clothing manufacturer Gruppo Ibis, according to clothing industry data. Representatives of the two companies could not be contacted for information. “Orders fell both in October and in November, by 50%. Apart from our three sections, we are also collaborating with another five or six smaller ones, but we no longer had work for them,” Sorin Chiriac, general manager of clothing manufacturer Caremil Roman. The company has built its own brand, Sense, which is dedicated to the Romanian market, in order to cover export losses.