Global supply chains, workers crushed during the pandemic
In her last weeks working at the local J.C. Penney store, Alexandra Orozco took out her phone and hit record. The 22-year-old shot a video of the giant black-and-red “Everything Must go!” posters, and posted it on TikTok in October.
“Slowing losing my job,” she wrote below, days before the store in Delano, California, shut for good, one of 156 J.C. Penneys across the United States to close since June of this year.
Since being laid off, she’s applied for a couple of roles — counseling kids, delivering flowers — but has yet to hear back.
“It’s so sad,” she said. “And it’s hard to find jobs here.”
Halfway across the world, Matefo Litali experienced upheaval, too. A skilled sewer, the 53-yearold worked at Tzicc Clothing, apparel-maker for U.S-based giants J.C. Penney and Walmart, in Lesotho, a small African country. She was employed for two months before nationwide lockdown measures forced all garment factories to temporarily close in March. After two days back at work, Tzicc confirmed her last day was May 7.
“I felt powerless,” she says. “The first thing that went through mymind was, ‘Why me?’ ”
Neither woman has met. Nor are they likely to: one lives in a remote agricultural town on the west coast of America, the other 10,000 miles away. Now, both of their lives — and livelihoods — are linked by a global pandemic that has crushed one of the world’s supply chains and with it, economies, too.
In March, as U.S. retailers canceled or failed to pay for existing orders worth billions of dollars, the effects quickly rippled down the supply chain.
At Tzicc Clothing, roughly one fifth of employees have lost their jobs since May, says Tsepang Makakole of Lesotho’s National Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
Litali felt weak in the knees when she heard that she was suddenly unemployed. Awidow for the last eight years, the seamstress single-handedly supports her youngest daughter, who is 20, and her 4-yearold grandchild.
Although Orozco lives with her parents, she still has car and phone bills. When her store closed temporarily in mid-March in adherence with COVID19 measures, she was out of work for three months and applied for unemployment. She used the time to finesse her side-hustle: a make-up business, selling lashes, lipglosses and clothes via Instagram.
She’s earning roughly $200-300 per month in sales, nearly five times less than her salary at J.C. Penney.
Today, both Litali and Orozco’s lives look uncertain. In August, Litali landed a job sewing jeans at another factory, but she fears her temporary contract won’t be renewed.
By next year, Orozco hopes to have saved enough to open a brick-and-mortar store.
“It’s stressful but. I know one day it will be worth it,” she said.