Global Gear

China is the world’s biggest ready-to-wear clothing producer, but it has lost business over the years as its workers’ paychecks have grown. The once-poor nation now has the fastest-growing middle class in the world. The average clothing factory worker in China now makes $1.26 an hour; in nearby Cambodia that same worker makes just 52 cents. That has led major retailers, including the Gap, Benetton, and Sears, to shift some of their business to Cambodia, Thailand, and other countries where clothing can be made for even less. The increased production has boosted the struggling economies of those countries by creating millions of jobs. Who benefits the most from all of this low-paid factory work? The companies which sell the goods in the US and American shoppers. Since 1990, clothing prices in the U.S. have increased just 10 percent, while food prices have soared 82 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That may explain how Americans manage to buy on average, per person, 68 pieces of clothing each year. However, China is a developing nation that is still one of the world’s largest exporters of clothes. Its 5,000 garment factories employ more than 4.5 million people. "The garment industry is No. 1 for exports and dollars for the country," explains Alonzo Suson, head of a labor-rights group in Pekin, Chinese capital. "Any slowdown of that development is a national security issue," he told The New York Times.