If you were to take a look through the clothes in your wardrobe, how many do you think would say ‘made in the UK’ on the label? The clothes industry, like many others in the UK, has seen production move to countries where labour costs are cheaper. For example, shoe company Clarks moved its production to the far east in 2005.
One company that found itself unable to continue local manufacture was Dewhirst Ladieswear, which based its production in Swansea and Cardigan, Wales. Dewhirst manufactured jeans for Marks & Spencer but in 2002 it moved production to Morocco, making 750 skilled workers redundant. Four hundred of these came from Cardigan, a small town of 4,000 people. The Cardigan factory had produced 35,000 pairs of jeans per week but when it closed the workers had nowhere to take their skills.
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