Upswing in U.S. Apparel and Textile Jobs as Firms Reshore

The impact of globalization on the apparel and textiles industry in the U.S. has been devastating. Especially hard hit are the southern states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, where apparel and textiles were historically a major economic mainstay. According to the Department of Labor, the total number of workers in U.S. textile mills fell from 332,900 in 2001 to 95,700 in 2020. That figure rose in 2021 to 97,700 but fell in 2023 to 91,000. (A significant number of these displaced workers became employed at automobile manufacturing plants recently constructed in the Southeastern U.S. by foreign firms such as Toyota and BMW.) The American Apparel and Footwear Association reported that in 1991, American-made apparel accounted for 56.2% of all clothing purchased in the U.S. Today it is estimated at less than 3%.

However, shifts in global trade are slowly bringing textile jobs back to the U.S. from other countries such as China and India. A small number of foreign textile manufacturers, frustrated by tariffs and rising wages, have moved production to the U.S. South. For example, Keer Group Co., a yarn manufacturer based in China’s Zhejiang province, invested $218 million in a new factory in Lancaster County, North Carolina. The plant created 500 new jobs. Indian yarn maker ShriVallabh Pittie Group spent $70 million to build a mill in Sylvania, Georgia creating 250 jobs. Such mills are very large users of energy. Not only are these companies taking advantage of comparatively cheap energy costs (thanks to natural gas from shale, finished yarn can easily be shipped from the U.S. to Central America, where it will be made into finished clothes which can be sold duty-free in the U.S. Trade and tariff conflicts between the U.S. and its trading partners are being watched closely by the apparel industry for long-term implications.

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Upswing in U.S. Apparel and Textile Jobs as Firms Reshore, Business and Industry Trends Analysis

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