Living Wages and Labour Law Compliance in Ethiopia’s Garment and Flower Farm Sectors

Abstract

Ethiopia is one of the biggest upcoming economies of Africa. Its garment sector is seen as the next destination for international brands to produce their products. As labour is abundant and cheap, brands such as H&M and PVH (known for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) have already started moving their manufacturing processes to Ethiopia. In 2019 the garment sector accounted for roughly 10% of Ethiopian exports and the sector had a 700% growth between 2014 and 2019. Another big exporting sector is the flower industry, accounting for around 8% of all exports in 2019. Ethiopia provides an ideal climate to growth all types of flowers, especially roses, and together with its labour force it attracts many foreign investors. Over the past 12 years the Ethiopian economy has grown a steady average of 10% each year (Gaulier & Zignago 2010). With the growth in production and exports, concerns about the working conditions and wages of workers also increased. With this report we want to assess the current working conditions and compliance with national labour law. The WageIndicator DecentWorkCheck is a survey that allows workers to test whether their working experiences comply with 37 topics in the national labour law. This report presents the results of of the survey and tries to determine what influences compliance and wages. We find compliance rates to be in general low, with the exception of working hours regulations. Without minimum wages, most workers do not earn a liveable wage. Compliance rates are especially low for employment security and the right to organise. The last topic is especially important for workers to voice their concerns about their working conditions and wages.

This report uses data collected by the WageIndicator Foundation in Ethiopia in the garment and flower farms sectors. Mywage.org/ethiopia and mywage.org/ethiopia-am are the websites where this data and information on working conditions and labour rights are publicly available. The data collection is part of the living wages project of the WageIndicator Foundation in Ethiopia.