Eighty thousand Cambodian garment workers have lost their jobs since January, and that number is expected to climb. The factories that employed them — at least 50, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia — have suspended operations. They are not coming back anytime soon.
The reason is straightforward. European Union buyers have walked away. H&M and Primark, two of the biggest names in fast fashion, announced in late February they would not renew contracts with Cambodian suppliers. GMAC secretary-general Ken Loo put a number on it: a 30% drop in orders from EU buyers compared to the same period last year. “This is not a temporary slowdown,” Loo said on March 10. “It is a structural shift in demand.”
That shift has been years in the making. The EU began pulling back trade preferences under the Everything But Arms scheme in 2020, citing human rights concerns. Cambodia had enjoyed duty-free access to European markets since 2001. The partial suspension of those benefits was a warning shot. It took five years for the full force of it to hit.
Now it has. European retailers have shifted their sourcing to Bangladesh and Vietnam, where costs are competitive and trade terms are stable. Cambodia’s garment sector, which accounts for 80% of the country’s total exports and employs more than 700,000 people, is suddenly a riskier bet. The contracts that sustained it for two decades are drying up.
The workers bearing the cost are mostly young women from rural areas. They live paycheck to paycheck. They have no savings. On March 12, 200 workers from the Suntex garment factory gathered to protest. The factory had suspended operations. They had no work, no income, no fallback.
Phnom Penh’s industrial suburbs have been hit hardest. So has Kampong Speu province, south of the capital. These are areas where the garment industry is the only real employer. There is no other work to absorb 80,000 people, let alone the tens of thousands more who will likely be laid off in the coming months.
The government has not announced any emergency measures. No wage subsidies. No retraining programs. No plan to attract new buyers from outside Europe. The factories sit idle. The workers wait.
What happens next depends on whether Cambodia can find new markets for its textiles. The EU was the biggest customer. Replacing that demand will not be quick or easy. The country’s other major export partners — the United States, Japan, China — have not shown signs of stepping in. Trade policy is not charity.
The structural shift Loo described is not unique to Cambodia. Global supply chains are being redrawn. Trade preferences are being weaponized. Human rights clauses in trade deals are no longer theoretical — they have real consequences for real people. Cambodia is learning that lesson the hard way.
For now, the factories stay dark. The workers stay home. The orders do not come. And the 80,000 figure, already staggering, looks like a floor, not a ceiling.
