VF Corp ‘Bridges the Gender Gap’ in Garment Automation
The increase in automation has female garment workers hanging on by a thread.
The International Labour Organization found that sewing automation could displace 65 million workers globally. With women accounting for 75 percent of the global garment workforce, that’s roughly 49 million women without jobs.
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VF Corp wants to change that.
The Timberland owner’s foundation has named Shimmy Technologies—a woman-owned social enterprise founded to prepare women working in apparel supply chains for “the future of work” through upskilling and reskilling via digital training—as a 2024 grantee. This will expand the upskilling to 500 more women through mobile phone-based training and another 800 workers within physical training centers.
“The VF Foundation is proud to work with partners like Shimmy that aim to improve the lives of people living in communities where VF operates. Shimmy’s innovative approach to helping women factory workers navigate and thrive amidst automation-driven changes demonstrates the type of impact that the Foundation seeks to elevate,” Gloria Schoch, executive director of the VF Foundation, said. “We are excited to see how this program continues to upskill and reskill garment workers and enable them to embrace the evolution of work.”
Last year, the VF Foundation granted nearly $4 million to 55 organizations around the globe in partnership with VF’s people and brands, including Shimmy, to drive innovative change while ensuring female garment workers in Bangladesh are equipped with the necessary skills and trainings to “thrive” in an automation-centric industry.
And in 2022, the VF Foundation supported Shimmy’s pilot program across Bangladesh to reach unemployed women and consider the value of new training solutions to “upskill and reskill women,” providing them with opportunities to enter the ready-made garment (RMG) industry.
Plus, Shimmy’s research project, the Apparel Automation Pulse, identified current and future machinery used in factories, which in turn helped the organization create a demand curve for machine-based skills—thus determining the content of the training programs to align with the individual needs of employers.
Of the 500 people who went through that training, 452 were women. Over 55 percent were employed in the RMG supply chain within six months. For the remaining 45 percent without jobs in the RMG industry, only 23 percent were looking for work after six months; the residual 22 percent either stayed at home, continued with other studies or entered a different industry.
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