A STUDY OF THE REDUCED MANPOWER ATTRACTION FOR THE APPAREL INDUSTRY

Abstract

After free liberalization, the apparel industry in Sri Lanka has shown a rapid growth in export earnings and generation of employment opportunities. It is a highly labourintensive sector. Majority of the employees are female machine operators. Although the garment industry has been clearly recognized the requirement of energetic skilled committed man power with the increasing production targets and product diversifications and the expansion of working plants, the attraction of new external candidates as well as the retention of internal employees to this garment industry has been gradually decreasing during recent years. Therefore, this research study has been done to study the causes of the reduction attraction of man power in the apparel industry. Three external factors and five internal factors which can be the causes for the reduction man power attraction were selected as the independent variables and the level of attraction of the employees was selected as the dependant variable. A questionnaire survey was done with a random selection of 100 females who are working in a garment factory. Data was analyzed according to the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS V.16.0). According to the data analyzed family issues and the night shifts are the major causes which cause poor attraction of man power into the apparel industry.