Circuits of capital and industrial restructuring: adjustment in the australian clothing industry

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Abstract
Patterns and processes of industrial restructuring in the Australian clothing industry are examined, utilising a ‘circuits of capital’ approach in which the interrelationships between labour markets, labour processes and product markets are emphasised. Changes in product markets (where import competition is intensifying under the trade liberalisation policies of the Hawke government and where an increasingly concentrated retail sector has accrued enormous bargaining power in its dealings with clothing manufacturers) and changes in labour markets (where competition for the industry's traditional inner urban labour supply has intensified considerably) are argued to have provided the driving force behind the process of clothing industry adjustment. This process of adjustment has been characterised by: (i) increased use of outworking, which enables clothing manufacturers to reduce production costs and provides a means for new sources of home‐based labour within the urban labour market to be tapped; and (ii) the evolution of a spatial division of labour, as some of the labour‐intensive components of the industry have been relocated to non‐urban sites where a stable and plentiful labour supply is available. In contrast to experiences in Europe and the United States, there is little evidence in Australia at the present time of significant technical change nor of specialisation in the high quality/high fashion niche of the garment market.