Fast Retailing Group Has Reached Cooperation With UN Women To Strive For More Rights And Interests For Women

Fast Retailing Group, the parent company of UNIQLO, a well-known clothing retailer, announced on June 28, 2019 that it had reached a global partnership agreement with UN Women, aiming to strive for more rights and interests for women working in the clothing industry. This is the first cooperation between UN Women and Asian clothing companies.

Women have always been the backbone of the clothing industry. Fast Retailing Group has long been committed to letting all female practitioners in the clothing industry fully display their abilities. This is crucial to the sustainable development of the supply chain of the entire industry, and whether it can continue to provide consumers with high-quality products.

Liu Jing, chairman and CEO of Fast Retailing Group, said, "Through cooperation with UN Women, we hope to create an environment conducive to their own development for the company and all female practitioners in the clothing industry, so that they can play a more active role in society."

"In the clothing industry, women account for the majority, but they are often assigned to low paid positions, with little opportunity for promotion. This time, our cooperation with Fast Retailing Group is an opportunity to change this situation," said Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women's Office, "By focusing on women's economic empowerment and providing women employees with professional training and opportunities to improve their capabilities, we have taken a key step in promoting the reform of the clothing industry."

It is understood that in the next two years (2019-2021), Fast Retailing Group will invest 1.6 million dollars (about 170 million yen) together with the UN Women's Office to carry out projects focusing on the rights and welfare of female employees in the Asian garment factory, which is the main production base of the Group, and implement management training plans to broaden the future diversified career development plan for female employees.

The reality faced by female practitioners in Asian garment factories is that although female practitioners account for about 80% of the total number of practitioners in the garment industry, most leadership positions, such as production line supervisors and other management positions, are dominated by men.

In addition, female practitioners also have to face obstacles such as career constraints, wage gap and recruitment bias due to gender, which makes it more difficult for them to achieve sustainable career development. At the same time, new technologies such as automation and robotics emerging in the clothing industry have also brought new challenges to female practitioners, who must constantly learn new skills to cope with changes in the industry.

Project Framework The cooperation project will focus on the following three aspects: 1. Provide ability training opportunities for women practitioners in the middle of their careers to support their career development, and help them achieve job promotion by providing professional leadership training; 2. Provide women practitioners with opportunities to acquire new skills, including skills that can cope with the trend of automation; 3. Raise the awareness of men occupying decision-making positions on the importance of gender equality and women's empowerment, and create a favorable environment for women's career development.

In the first year of the project, female employees working in partner factories in Bangladesh, China and Vietnam will be investigated to determine what gender challenges they face. According to the survey results, Fast Retailing Group and UN Women will develop corresponding auxiliary plans to provide professional training for female employees selected from about 200 cooperative factories in the three countries. Fast Retailing Group and UN Women hope to create a more positive impact on the local and even the whole clothing industry supply chain through this cooperation plan.

Fast Retailing Group is one of the largest clothing retail groups in the world. In fiscal year 2018 (as of August 31, 2018), the group's comprehensive income reached about 2.13 trillion yen, about 19.17 billion dollars. So far, Uniqlo has opened more than 2000 stores in 22 countries and regions, including Japan.