Textile mill output plunges 44.85%

18 Jan '08

3 min read

Data released by the U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday showed that U.S. Textile Mill output fell sharply by 12.1 percent in 2007. The drop in output was the largest since the U.S. government began publishing output data on the topic in 1972. From its peak in December 1997, U.S. Textile Mill output has plunged 44.85 percent.

Output in other sectors of the industry declined too, with U.S. Textile Product Mill output falling 4.9 percent and U.S. Apparel output falling 2.5 percent in 2007. From its peak in April 2000, U.S. Textile Product Mill output is down 17.71 percent. U.S. Apparel output has fallen 59.8 percent since December 1994.

"A flood of subsidized imports, especially those from China, is crippling the U.S. textile industry. The decline in U.S. output directly is tied to the loss of market share, and the loss of market share then directly is tied to the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing jobs," said American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) Executive Director Auggie Tantillo.

In contrast to the apparel assembly sector where labor represents a substantial portion of a product's cost, textile production is just the opposite. It is heavily automated, capital intensive, and engineering driven. That is why subsidy schemes and illegal trade practices are the main reasons why China and other predatory exporters are able to take away market share away from highly efficient and productive U.S. textile producers.

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