Huq, who chairs the family-run Mohammadi Group, says that upon closer inspection, the seams of that model are fast coming undone. Several years ago, Huq installed hundreds of jacquard-weaving machines and other equipment from China and Germany, allowing her to cut 3,000 jobs, almost a third of her staff. Although those people eventually found work in other parts of the business, she worries about the future: As many as 80% of Bangladeshi factories planned to purchase automation equipment from 2023 to 2025, with each machine capable of displacing as many as six people, according to a study from researcher Shimmy Technologies Inc. “When large-scale automation happens for Bangladesh, replacing the workers will be a huge issue,” Huq says.
Rubana Huq’s garment factory is a constant cacophony of hissing steam irons, swooshing fans and snipping scissors. In the vast industrial facility near Dhaka, hundreds of women guide pieces of fabric through sewing machines, stitching clothing for the likes of H&M, Pepe Jeans and Primark. A digital signboard tracks productivity with the precision of a stock ticker, calculating the defect rate for garments down to the hundredth percentage point.
The scene evokes the growth strategy dozens of countries have followed in recent decades: factories employing legions of workers to produce goods for export at wages that are low by Western standards but relatively generous in local terms. That model has more than tripled the size of Bangladesh’s economy, turning subsistence farmers into textile workers for brands from Adidas to Zara — what the World Bank calls one of the “greatest development stories” of our time.
