40,000 jobs lost in 3 years in Haiti's garment manufacturing sector

08 Jan '25

2 min read

40,000 jobs lost in 3 years in Haiti's garment manufacturing sector

Pic: Adobe Stock

Insights

Haiti's garment manufacturing industry, which employed 62,000 workers in December 2021, has lost 64 per cent of its workforce in three years, Georges Sassine, ex-president of the Association of Industries of Haiti has said.
Apart from the security crisis, there is uncertainty regarding the renewal of trade preferences for Haiti under the HOPE/HELP Act.
The agreements will expire in September 2025.

Haiti’s garment manufacturing industry, which employed 62,000 workers in December 2021, has lost over 40,000 workers, or 64 per cent of its workforce, in three years, according to Georges Sassine, former president of the Association of Industries of Haiti.

Apart from the security crisis, there is uncertainty regarding the renewal of trade preferences for Haiti under the Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act and its complementary Haiti Economic Lift Programme (HELP), which offers certain garments duty-free access to the US market. The agreements will expire in September 2025.

Buyers are not convinced that the US Congress will renew the HOPE/HELP Act, Sassine told a Haitian news outlet.

It takes months to develop a relationship with a manufacturer and contracts take much longer to sign, and buyers cannot commit to something that they do not know will end in September, he said.

The CODEVI industrial park, which has 11 tenants manufacturing for 15 brands, now has 15,000 employees. It has lost about 6,000 workers since the crisis started and could lose another 6,000 if the HOPE/HELP law is not extended.

At the Caracol industrial park, there are only 2,900 jobs left and only one tenant, the Korean textile company Sae-A Trading Co., which operates under the name S&H Global in Haiti.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

More Apparel/Garments News - Haiti...