{"id":276409,"date":"2019-05-07T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=28b66d12a7e6dca6bae425f01d76fe02"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:34:29","slug":"wapo-nyu-ethiopias-garment-workers-were-the-worlds-lowest-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/276409","title":{"rendered":"WaPo\/NYU: Ethiopia\u2019s garment workers were the world\u2019s lowest paid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2019 coverage of NYU Stern\u2019s Made in Ethiopia report found Hawassa Industrial Park garment workers on a customary base wage of about 750 birr, roughly $26 a month, the lowest in any major apparel-exporting country, while sewing for brands chasing Asia\u2019s rising costs.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-423532\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Textile-and-garment-workers-in-Hawassa-industrial-Park.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"WaPo\/NYU: Ethiopia\u2019s garment workers were the world\u2019s lowest paid\" \/>\n<p>Young women from farming families shared rooms without plumbing, struggled with food and transport, and quit or stopped lines when pay failed basic needs. Ethiopia had no private-sector minimum wage to stop the race to the bottom.<\/p>\n<p>Abiy Ahmed\u2019s industrial-park miracle sold jobs. The Stern research asked the only adult question: jobs that cannot feed workers are not a development model, they are a labor discount for foreign buyers.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as labor\/business archive, the garment-wage file still frames Ethiopia\u2019s manufacturing pitch. Investors wanted cheap hands. Workers needed a living wage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/africa\/report-ethiopias-garment-workers-are-worlds-lowest-paid\/2019\/05\/07\/1d87292c-7087-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html\">Washington Post<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bhr.stern.nyu.edu\/publication\/made-in-ethiopia-challenges-in-the-garment-industrys-new-frontier\/\">NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Report: Ethiopia\u2019s garment workers are world\u2019s lowest paid&nbsp;&nbsp;Washington PostADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia \u2014 Ethiopian garment factory workers are now, on average, the lowest paid in any major garment-producing company worldwide, a new &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":423532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Textile-and-garment-workers-in-Hawassa-industrial-Park.jpg?fit=500%2C333&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-19Ud","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602523,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276409\/revisions\/602523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}