Counterfeit shoes and garments could be costing Europe 500,000 jobs
23/07/2015
In the report, Alicante-based OHMI claims that if these products were genuine and made by the owners of the intellectual property or by official manufacturing partners, clothing, footwear and accessories would need to create more than 360,000 extra jobs. This figure refers to direct employment. Adding in the supplier sectors, the number of new jobs would be almost 520,000.
It’s not that these jobs have been ‘lost’; the point OHMI makes is that this is the extra level of employment that could be created if all the clothes, shoes and accessories consumers buy with the branding of EU companies on them were genuine.
In response to the report, the European Apparel and Textile Confederation (Euratex) urged the European Commission to take concrete action to tackle counterfeiting and piracy. It said the three “essential aspects of the fight” are to combat the phenomenon within the boundaries of the EU, to ensure imported counterfeit textiles and clothing are intercepted, and to bring perpetrators to justice.
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