Textile Industry

The textile industry encompasses a sequence of production processes that transform raw materials into finished textiles and clothing products. Production in these sectors is shaped by two fundamental characteristics. First, cloth is relatively malleable and fragile, so commodity manufacturing in these industries has resisted automation and remained labor-intensive. Second, because the industry's production processes are divisible and able to be separated or vertically disintegrated into sequential stages, firms are able to locate each stage of production at the most advantageous site. As a result, the sector has developed a globalized organizational structure. Figure 1 provides a simplified view of the textiles production sequence.

The raw materials used to make textiles include natural fibers, human-made fibers, and combinations of the two. Natural fibers include cotton, wool, silk, flax, and hemp. Human-made or synthetic fibers can be obtained from processing petrochemicals (nylon and polyester) or made from [Page 2813]cellulose, which is derived from wood or cotton (rayon and viscose). Although the actual processes differ depending on the type of fiber, textile production involves spinning thread, weaving or knitting it into fabric, and then dyeing and finishing the fabric in different ways, depending on the intended end use. Technological advances in fiber manufacturing have generated a highly automated and capital-intensive subsector. In addition, a vibrant research sector is developing patentable new fibers that combine natural and synthetic materials for a range of high-technology applications (e.g., the carbon-coated textiles used in the aerospace industry).

Figure 1 The textile industries

Source: Adapted from Dicken, P. (2004). Global shift: The internationalization of economic activity (5th ed., p. 234, fig. 8.1). London: Paul Chapman.

Textiles have a wide range of industrial, household, and personal uses. They are the principal material in ropes, sacks, canvases, and fiberglass and have a wide range of industry uses (e.g., in filters and the rollers used in printing mills). Textiles are found in home and office furniture, carpets, curtains, bedding, as well as in the interiors of transport vehicles. Nonetheless, about 40% of textiles are used as inputs to clothing production.

Clothing production involves designing garments; making patterns; cutting cloth; sewing the cloth into garments; adding buttons, zippers, and other accessories; and then checking and packaging the final product. Basic clothing production (i.e., cutting and sewing pieces of cloth) does not require advanced skills, complex equipment, advanced technologies, or large capital investments. Clothing manufacture is therefore characterized by what economists call low barriers to entry and exit, meaning that firms can easily come into or drop out of the industry. As a consequence, the sector has historically been volatile and mobile, changing rapidly in response to the vagaries of the business cycle and shifting its production locations in response to regulatory changes and interregional wage differences.

The sector exemplifies five key theoretical themes in economic geography and development studies: (1) the geopolitics of economic globalization, (2) the tensions between globalized production networks and localized industrial districts, (3) the internationalization of struggles over labor rights, (4) the flexibilization of the labor process, and (5) the contemporary repositioning of “cultural” industries.

...