Garment factories suffer lack of workers

The export volume of Lao garment has not met international market's demand due to lack of workers, said Chairman of Lao Garment and Industry Association, Mr. Onsy Boutsivongsak.

This was Mr. Onsy's report addressing at a recent meeting of Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Last year, the orders from overseas market increased but we did not respond our customers' demand due to the shortage of workers and additional overtime working, he said.

He added that this matter has so far been proposed to the government to address the problem. Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare was advised to mobilise workers through the labour recruitment agencies. In reality, the labour recruitment agencies were not able to supply labour to those factories. While every factories need to employ at least 8,250 workers.

One other case that we were currently facing the competition of workers among garment factories in the cities, he pointed.

The students are a new labour, after they have got experiences they stopped. This was a problem that we were facing currently.

In addition, younger workers and overtime working are also the problem that we should address so we should amend labour law in line with the international law.

Mr. Onsy added the order in this year expects to increase because the number of large investment seems to increase in Laos. We have a high potential to attract the foreign investors come to Laos if we could address the current lack of workers. This factor will increase the volume of products and is able to respond the volume of export.

Thanks to large number of last year's orders, there were three more garment factories were established. The volume of export was 65 million clothes with amount to US$196 million compared to 2009, up to 23 per cent.

The garment export to the European Union amounted to US$141 million or increased by 11 per cent, United States of America US$33 million or increased by 21 per cent, Canada US$8.8 million or increased by 91 per cent, Japan US$1million or increased by 25 per cent.

Lao News Agency

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