About 20 thousand workers may face axe in Tirupur

With an anticipated 30% decline in export turnover during the current fiscal, there is an apprehension that about 15,000 to 20,000 workers in the knitwear industry in Tirupur will lose their jobs.

Attributing the economic recession sweeping the Western Countries to the dip in turnover, sources in the Tirupur Exporters’ Association, said exports have nosedived during the first half of this fiscal to Rs.5050 crore from Rs.5350 crore registered during the corresponding period last year.

Exporters see a bleak future in the remaining period of the fiscal, since there had been a 25 to 30 per cent decline in orders from different markets, particularly the USA and Europe, the sources said.

This would result in reduction of working days and hours, leading to rendering of jobless to 15000 to 20,000 of about three lakh workers employed in different segments of about 600 manufacturing units in the knitwear cluster, they said.

Some units have already started to function five-day a week and reduced the working hours from 10 to eight hours, from October last, the sources said.