Workers Receive Less Than 1% of the Price of a T-Shirt

The global apparel market is a trillion-dollar industry that employs tens of millions of workers around the world. But despite the industry’s strong growth over the past two decades, it remains heavily skewed towards the top of the value chain. While a small number of large multinational companies that dominate the apparel market globally make billions in profit each year, factory workers in textile-producing countries barely make a living wage, all while facing poor working conditions that are often not only uncomfortable but unsafe.

Estimates published by the Clean Clothes Campaign reveal the extent to which workers are disadvantaged in the industry. The organization broke down the retail price of a T-shirt sold for €29 in Europe to illustrate where the money ends up. It shows that factory workers receive less than one percent of the price of a T-shirt produced in Bangladesh and sold at a typical ready-to-wear retailer in Europe. The largest part of the final sales price, almost 60 percent, ends up with retailers in the form of store profit, staff, rent and sales tax. The next largest shares are brand profit and material costs, each at 12 percent of the final price and transport costs at 8 percent. Meanwhile the factory in Bangladesh makes little more than its workers, with an estimated 4 percent of the final price ending up as factory profit.