7) "Made in Japan": from Textile Town to World
2010 Jul/Aug
COVER STORY: White Paper on International Economy & Trade 2010
By Kozo MITSUZANE (Founder/manager of Marumitsu Apparel Co.)
Textile Town Kojima Kojima in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, is famous across Japan as a textile town. About 70% of school uniforms for male students are produced in Kojima. In addition, it is thriving in the manufacture of uniforms for corporate employees. Also, Kojima is the birthplace of "Made in Japan" jeans, which have become the town's flagship products. A variety of large and small sewn product manufacturers are in town. They used to get migrant workers from two main islands - Shikoku and Kyushu - but some have shifted their plants to overseas countries in recent years in search of low-cost labor, while on the contrary quite a few firms have brought Chinese workers to Japan. Our company has been manufacturing casual clothing focused on children's wear in Kojima for 35 years. Many children's garments being sold in the country, too, are made in China, but we pit ourselves against them in using what is called a naishoku (sideline work) manufacturing system in which homemakers are recruited to do piecework at home to turn out high-quality children's wear capable of competing with inexpensive clothes produced in China. And our products have pleased our customers. Naishoku Work Done at Home There are many homemakers in this town who had sewing experience in factories when they were younger. Also, there are many women who quit working temporarily due to childbirth or other reasons but wish to get a job again because childcare has settled down. And some young women who have become members of society hunt for sewing jobs. However, work positions for them are considerably scarce compared with bygone days. Not a few sewing factories have relocated their production facilities abroad in an attempt to cut back on personnel costs and beat the influx of low-priced foreign clothing. On the other hand, some factories accept Chinese workers as trainees paid less than regular employees. We manufacture goods by depending on the conventional method of naishoku that enables the employment of women in Kojima who like to make clothing but have no place to work. Quite a few of them strongly feel they do not want to lose out to Chinese products and people. At present, we have 28 women naishoku workers aged 38 to 72. Because they have excellent sewing skills and possess their own sewing machines at home, we do not have to maintain our factory nor do we need to teach them sewing techniques from the ground up. We can minimize the cost of... <<BACK

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