Asian stores with cheap goods have become a “real problem” for Belarusian light industry enterprises, said the chairman of the Belarusian trade union of light industry workers Mikhail Kastsyan. According to him, it is difficult for Belarusian goods to compete with such products due to low prices.
The information was posted on the website of the Federation of Trade Unions.
“Producers from the countries of Southeast Asia have flooded our market with goods of inadequate quality and at prices significantly lower than our domestic product. This leads to a decrease in demand for goods of the Belarusian light industry, which, in turn, has a negative impact on the wage level of workers in the industry,” said Mikhail Kastsyan.
Among other problems in the light industry is forced downtime of enterprises.
“But it should be noted that there is a tendency towards a decrease in the number of employees who are on leave without saving or with partial saving of wages. For 10 months of 2018, their number decreased almost 2 times compared to the same period of 2017 — from 4,294 to 2,623,” said Kastsyan.
According to him, over the past 5 years, the number of people working in the region has decreased by more than 15%. The average number of employees in January-August 2018 was 47,513, for the same period of 2017 — 48,752.
The trade union leader noted that the main reasons for the shortage of personnel are the low prestige of the light industry professions, the unwillingness of young people to receive a working job training, and low wages. For 11 months of last year, the average nominal wage in the industry amounted to 693 Belarusian rubles.
