Morocco Garment Worker Wages Rank Third Behind China, Turkey

Claire Wilson
·4 min read
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Morocco’s guaranteed monthly wage clocks in as relatively high compared to other major suppliers to the European Union of textiles, garments, leather, luxury goods and shoes, according to a new study. Inditex, Zara’s parent company, and Mango are just two of the European players that order clothing from Morocco.

Issued by Evaillance, a French company that analyzes salaries to help monitor enforcement of economic agreements between the EU and Southeast Asia, the study ranked Morocco third behind Turkey and China in rate of pay and much higher than other major producers Bangladesh and Pakistan. Moroccan workers earn roughly $307 per month, or $1.61 per hour. That is three times what the average Bangladeshi or Pakistani worker earns, five times a worker’s pay in Myanmar and 50 percent more than the pay in neighboring Tunisia, according to the study. Hours worked per week ranged from 40 in China to 48 in six markets, including India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Tunisia.

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Wage hikes are taking hold in some major producing markets like Bangladesh where it was recently raised, Turkey which went up by 100 percent over the past year, and Vietnam where a wage hike has been proposed for 2024. While it is higher than some countries, the current hourly rate in Morocco gives it an edge over production powerhouses like Turkey and China.

According to Evaillance president Jean-Francois Limantour, buying power and competition within the textiles sector is the principal reason for Morocco’s high wages. The country has a thriving economy with a gross domestic product of 1,400 billion dirhams ($133.0 billion), up from 1,330 billion dirhams ($130.9 billion) in 2022. This is reason enough for higher wages, Limantour said.

He said further that Moroccan currency is stable, buffeted by exchange rates of the euro and the U.S. dollar. On the other hand, the lengthy depreciation of Tunisian dinars, coupled with the country’s economic difficulties and significant debt, explains why the minimum wage in Tunisia is at $1.08 per hour instead of the $1.61 it is in Morocco. Among the 10 producing countries reviewed by Evaillance, the hourly wages in Turkey were the highest at $2.38 and China came in second, at $2.19.

The study put Tunisia in the top spot for price per kilo of imported clothing, at 36.83 euros. Pakistan is at the bottom, at 13.49 Euros per kilo while the average among the top ten in the sample was 21.69 euros per kilo.

The average price of clothing imported to the EU from Morocco is 30.67 euros per kilo. Limantour deems this “fine, but insufficient, given that it’s 20 percent less than Tunisia, its closest direct competitor with Turkey,” he said. He recommends that Morocco go up in price in the short term to be closer to the middle/high end of the market. He said this will minimize exposure of the Moroccan clothing industry to Asian countries and Turkey, and boost orders destined for the European market.

Limantour noted that European importers choose their garment suppliers according to multiple criteria, among which are price, the price/quality ratio, proximity to production, how quickly they solve problems, reliability, ESG, etc. Salaries and costs are an important factor as much for those manufacturers as for those who come in at the mid- to low-end of the range. The impact of salaries on the companies and their exports are therefore considerable, the study said. Either the companies with high salaries can set their prices to the competitors in export or not, and if they don’t they will likely be forced from the market. It’s this kind of salary information that governs where production is centered and sheds light on performance gaps among producing countries.

Limantour concluded that the best way to add value is to go up in range and become more competitive outside of price. “That will allow the companies to improve their margins and their sales volume while paying workers better,” he said. “Underpaying workers is always an error, says the old saying. You never get what you pay for.”

Limantour also said salaries are far from being an absolute indicator of production costs and even less of an indicator of competitiveness. “The market is definitely heading toward an environmentally conscious version of fast fashion,” he said. “Companies have to be agile and able to invest in AI and 4.0.”