Das leise Sterben einer Branche – Der Niedergang der westdeutschen Bekleidungsindustrie in den 1960er/70er Jahren

Abstract

Abstract Unnoticed Disappearance – The Decline of the West-German Clothing Industry in the 1960s/70s In the beginning of the 20th century the German clothing industry used to be a considerable producer of consumer goods, manufacturing clothes for both home and export market. In the 1960s and 70s this branch of the German industry began to decline, mainly due to the pay gap between the labor costs in Germany and low-wage-countries located in Eastern Europe and Asia. In response to this development bigger German companies outsourced their production abroad to save labor costs. Smaller companies often lacked the needed financial resources and had to face bankruptcy as result. At the end only services like planning and quality control remained in Germany. In consequence of this development a lot of German seamstresses lost their jobs. The government did not care about these problems; the enterprises did not receive subsidies. The unions in the sector were weak due to a high percentage of working women and the high ratio of small and medium sized regionally dispersed enterprises.