In the first half of 2026, investment in Guizhou's textile and apparel industry grew 116.9% year-on-year, and the value added of textile enterprises above designated size rose 32.2%. During the same period, the province's textile and apparel industry added more than 4,000 jobs, but "easy to recruit, hard to find skilled workers" became the most commonly reported problem among local enterprises.

Returning-home employment becomes a trend, leading enterprises drive notable growth

In Dafang County, Guizhou Meibang Garment Technology Co., Ltd. started trial production on March 9 this year and officially began operations on April 15. Its workforce grew from more than 100 during trial production to more than 700 now. The company's transitional plant has built 3 cutting workshops and 1 training workshop, with 13 production lines across five major segments—knitwear, denim, woven pants, and down jackets—fully operational, with annual output expected to exceed 100 million yuan. Chen Juanjuan, director of the Dafang County Investment Promotion Bureau, said the locality organizes recruitment through a model of "enterprises place orders, the government takes orders, and towns and villages deliver orders." Visits found that most migrant workers are willing to return home; even if income is 2,000 yuan less than outside the province, they value the convenience of caring for family and saving travel costs.

Since Bijie Jinghuang Garment Co., Ltd. began production in April 2022, its workforce has grown from 1,200 to more than 3,900, the vast majority of whom are local Nayong residents. The company focuses on absorbing county-level labor and people lifted out of poverty and conducts tiered skills training. In 2025, the company's output value reached 840 million yuan, and this year it is expected to exceed 1 billion yuan.

Breaking through weak links in the industrial chain, dyeing and finishing support fills the gap

Guizhou has long had a structural weakness of "yarn but no fabric, fabric but no dyeing." Fabrics and gray goods mostly rely on transfers from outside the province, resulting in high logistics costs. Guizhou Hongsheng Light Textile Group, a key introduction in Bijie, is currently in the weaving stage, and its gray goods need to be shipped to Zhejiang and Fujian for dyeing and finishing. Its dyeing and finishing project in Bijie High-tech Zone has received environmental impact assessment approval. Once completed, gray goods will no longer need to be shipped out, and overall costs can drop by about 30%. In Duyun, Guizhou Shenglong Garment has had full orders since starting production in July 2025, shipping an average of 3 times per week, with foreign trade accounting for 20%, and products sold to markets such as Japan, South Korea, and India; 21 Medical Technology has all 5 home textile production lines fully operating and conducts outsourcing cooperation with more than 20 enterprises, 8 of which are within the province.

Ruijing Textile Technology, located in Bijie High-tech Zone, mainly produces knitted sweaters. By the end of August, it had installed 900 pieces of equipment, plans to reach 1,200 this year and employ 800 workers, and currently has 380 workers with an average wage above 5,000 yuan. General Manager Zheng Yuhua believes competition in Guizhou's knitting industry is not yet intense and costs have advantages, and believes that as experienced workers increase, recruitment difficulties will gradually ease.

Talent structure mismatch is the core contradiction

Several industry insiders pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people from Guizhou work in the textile and apparel industry outside the province, but only a minority return to their hometowns. Sang Tong, associate professor at Guizhou Minzu University, believes this is a typical case of sufficient total labor supply but mismatched talent structure—ordinary labor supply is ample, while there is a prominent shortage of skilled sewing machine operators, patternmakers, quality control staff, workshop management, and other technical and middle-management talent. In particular, local design talent familiar with local ethnic culture and the local supply chain is especially scarce. She suggested that human resources and social security departments work with enterprises to survey the Guizhou-born migrant worker group, introduce return-home incentive policies, and that enterprises build internal training systems.

At present, departments including the Guizhou Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security have established 10 employment training alliances, including for light textiles. As of June 2026, they have absorbed 118 units and conducted 31,300 person-times of training around sewing workers, apparel patternmakers, and other roles, guaranteeing employment for 29,600 workers. The provincial textile group has reached cooperation with Guiyang Railway Engineering School and Duyun Secondary Vocational Technical School; Bijie, relying on local vocational colleges, established the Guizhou Light Textile Industry Industry-Education Integration Community, launched a clothing design and craftsmanship major, and built the "Bijie Weaver" labor brand; the Donghua University Guizhou Textile Fashion Innovation Research Institute is expected to be inaugurated in the fourth quarter.

According to Guizhou Province's Guiding Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Textile and Apparel Industry, by the end of 2030 the province's total textile and apparel industry output value will double compared with the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and employment capacity will reach about 200,000 people. After the 11 textile projects already launched fully reach production in 2027, they are expected to generate annual output value of 10 billion yuan and provide 30,000 jobs.

Source: Colorful Clothing Style · Guizhou's Textile and Apparel Industry Rises with the Momentum | Recruit and Also Cultivate Talent | Guizhou Textile and Apparel Industry Development Observation (Part 2) · Originally published on 2026-09-21