Viewpoint: Will China'S Garment Industry Usher In Large-Scale Layoffs This Year?

Christine Tsui, a fashion writer, said: as the global luxury goods industry is stagnant and China's economy is slowing down,

We need to prepare for large-scale layoffs.

Shanghai, China, the first quarter of 2016 did not bring new trends to the fashion industry, but continued the recession in 2015.

In the first year, Hedi Slimane, Stefano Pilati and other creative directors left.

CEO was not idle. First, Chanel's Maureen Chiquet announced her resignation, and then Luxottica's Khan resigned.

This month, the major luxury groups that have just released their first quarter earnings are worried.

In February 7, 2016, Phoenix International has a headline entitled "21.8% layoffs in the United States and 5 trillion dollars in bad debts in China."

22 things prove that 2016 is also bad, "the article points out that in the retail industry, with the increase in the number of stores such as WAL-MART (Walmart), K-MART, J.C. PENNY, Messi Macy (s) and Gap apparel, the size of layoffs will also gradually expand.

In fact, since 2013, China has heard news about layoffs.

So far, publicly reported large-scale layoffs have mainly occurred in the fields of science, technology, telecommunications and the Internet.

In China's apparel industry, news of brand closings has also been heard.

Although small-scale layoffs have been seen in some parts of the country, will China's clothing industry experience a large-scale layoffs?

The reason why I pay so much attention to layoffs is that I feel a lot of pain in layoffs.

During the 1998 financial crisis, I was working at Nike Inc., a sports giant.

One day, the company suddenly held a full staff meeting that it would lay off staff, but the list of layoffs was uncertain.

The rest of the week was almost restless, waiting for the list of redundancies to come out.

One day later, when I entered the company, I found that the computer could not run.

Everyone was called to the boss's office to talk.

If you receive a letter, you are laid off.

The letter stated all the compensation conditions.

If you do not receive the letter, Congratulations, you are still valuable to the company.

Layoffs were implemented immediately.

After half a day, the tables around me were empty.

This is my first time to realize the cruelty of capitalism. Suddenly, my colleagues suddenly walked a great deal.

This incident made me reexamine the difference between capitalism and the socialist system.

At least in the financial turmoil, China's domestic enterprises have not heard of large-scale layoffs.

On the one hand, the Chinese government has made active prevention and control, insisting that the RMB should not be depreciated. Secondly, from the operational level of the enterprises, local enterprises are going through the process of pforming from state owned to privatized economy, while private enterprises are just beginning to grow, so the participation of local enterprises in the global economy is not yet deep, and so the impact is not great.

However, a number of foreign-funded enterprises in China's domestic market, like Nike, have experienced a large-scale layoff.

However, at that time, the government was worried that large-scale layoffs would lead to social instability. The leading enterprises in various sectors of the industry promised not to lay off workers by administrative means.

In November 22, 2008, the Oriental Morning Post, entitled "commitment not to lay off is a manifestation of corporate social responsibility", commended the general worker of Minhang District, Shanghai.

(I) asked the trade unions and enterprises at all levels to unite and work together to tide over the difficulties. Within two days, 154 enterprises and trade unions in the region responded.

As a result, there was no massive downsizing in China's local clothing industry at that time.

Just now, another ten years have passed.

Over the past ten years, both the global market and China's apparel industry have undergone subversive changes.

The traditional retail scenery is no longer the Internet; the Internet has become a completely life style from simple mail communication and sales channels; the middle and primary employees of the enterprise have grown from a group of parents who listen to their parents at home, listen to teachers in the school, and listen to leaders 60 and 70 after the business to grow into more self 80 and 90; the domestic market economy is more independent and globalized.

So if there is another economic crisis, will the method of administrative intervention continue to be effective? Most importantly, maintaining social stability is important, but if objectively, the enterprises do not have the ability to bear it, we must know that no layoffs need to pay huge financial costs: to die or to lay off workers. What about enterprises and the government?

According to official data of the National Bureau of statistics, China Business Information Center, customs and so on, February 2, 2016's "China costumes" summarized and analyzed the data of apparel industry from January 2015 to November, and summed up the conclusion that "the growth of large retail industry is weak," "domestic market power is insufficient" and "profitability decline".

From the enterprise level, so far, leading enterprises in several fields --

The financial statements of BELLE, casual wear Metersbonwe and sportswear Lining are not optimistic.

In fact, from a certain point of view, "entrepreneurship" has already explained the difficulties of the current job market.

To some extent, the difficulties in the job market reflect that enterprises are at least cautious in expanding their scale and recruiting staff.

In addition, because of the long-term immersion in the capital market and the existence of the developed market consulting institutions, the European and American companies have a stronger ability to predict the market crisis than Chinese enterprises.

The Chinese enterprises' understanding of the laws of market economy is still in the process of exploration. Therefore, the reaction of Chinese enterprises to the market crisis may be a hindsight.

While in

The most competitive women's wear, casual wear and fashion footwear are the most competitive ones.

The economic crisis is not a bad thing either for the government or for enterprises.

After all, flowers grown in greenhouses are not as strong as those that have experienced wind and rain.

The western enterprises have just experienced many market exercises before they become the pnational giants of today.

In short, there is nothing wrong with bringing in mass layoffs at all times.