Overseas Competition

Q. I suppose really, how did things progress and change during that time?

A. Well, I think the biggest problem that we had, which we never solved, and nor did anybody else, and that's why the industry closed, was the question of the high labour content of making up garments, and that was the thing that really killed the industry. It was too expensive to employ labour to sew garments together compared with the cost of labour in Thailand and Hong Kong and China and Brazil, places like that.  There they didn't have the social security expenses that we have here and they didn't have the high wages, so they were able to do it and we lost out.

Q. When were the first hints of that?  When did people first get an idea of those?

A. Oh I think it was the late 60s, early 70s, with people beginning to say imports are beginning to become a nuisance and cause the industry a lot of problems.

Source: East Midlands Oral History Archive (Ref: R Kempton)