YAMAGUCHI – Japanese fashion behemoth Fast Retailing has partnered with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to hone in on labour markets throughout Asia and improve social security and working environments.
The owner of the Uniqlo brand, Fast Retailing will provide US$1.8 million over two years (2019-2021) to enable ILO to undertake research in production hubs such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Kazutoshi Chatani, employment specialist for the ILO Jakarta Office, told Ecotextile News that its approach will be three fold, and will entail setting conventions and recommendations to improve working environments, encouraging and facilitating dialogue between each country’s governments, workers’ organisations and employers’ organisations, and implementing development cooperation projects in each region.
“This project strives to strengthen workers’ protection against unemployment,” Chatani said. “It strengthens re-skilling of workers so they can move from declining economic sectors to emerging and growing ones, [and] it will work with public training institutions to this end.”
