ABSTRACT

The production and employment statistics for the Japanese apparel industry 1983–1992 show a relatively stable situation, with some 30,000 establishments and between 500,000 and 600,000 employees In comparison with other industries, the apparel industry shows great heterogeneity. The presence of numerous subcontracting firms, ensuring the manufacture of garments, constituted another favourable situation in which mass market and productive structure could be reconciled. The changes in the Japanese clothing market vary between sub-sectors and the slowdown in consumption has been particularly severe in the menswear branch, whereas ladies ready-to-wear has shown much stronger resistance overall. After 1992, the Japanese economic recession altered consumer behaviour, reducing the propensity to buy branded products. Ministry of International Trade and Industry actually began to take an interest in the apparel industry when oil prices rose, hitting the competitiveness of Japanese synthetic textiles with full effect.