January was busiest month for RMG workers as they worked 11hrs a day

The country’s readymade garment workers spent about 11 hours a day in factories in January which is higher than usual, according to the latest survey.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, January 2022 was the busiest month for garment workers in Bangladesh as workers spent 295 hours on average in the factory during the 27 working days in January.

This is higher than usual, according to survey findings by the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM).

The survey data was collected in January and February of 2022.

Excluding the one-hour lunch break, the workers worked 268 hours on an average in January.

Female workers worked 267 hours on an average in January, while male workers worked 270 hours on an average, excluding the one-hour lunch break, it found.

SANEM in collaboration with USA-based non-profit organisation, Microfinance Opportunities (MFO), is conducting a research project on the quality of life of garment workers in Bangladesh.

Around 1,300 selected garment workers are surveyed every week since April 2020 under the project “Garment Worker Diaries”.

These workers are employed in factories spread across the five main industrial areas of Bangladesh (Chittagong, Dhaka City, Gazipur, Narayanganj, and Savar).

Three-quarters of the survey respondents are women, which roughly represents the composition of labour force in the RMG sector as a whole.

In the 24 working days of February, the workers spent 259 hours on average in the factory.

Workers worked 235 hours on an average in February, excluding the one-hour lunch break.

Among them, female workers worked 234 hours on average and male workers worked 235 hours on average.

In both January and February, half of the surveyed workers worked more than the legally allowed 10 hours which accounts for 8 regular hours and 2 overtime hours. 

For the work in December, female workers got a salary of Tk 12,000 on an average in January, while male workers got salary of Tk 12,500 on an average.

For the work in January, female workers got salary of Tk 12,000 on an average in February, the same as in January.

But, the survey found that male workers got salary of Tk 13,000 on an average, a Tk 500 increase over the January amount.

In February, 54 per cent of workers were paid through mobile financial services (bKash, Nagad, Rocket, etc.) and 46 per cent were paid in cash.

About 20 per cent of the garment workers reported that at least one member of their household was ill during February while the illness rate in January was 26 per cent, according to SANEM survey.

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