Better Work aims at strengthening the resilience of Sri Lanka’s apparel industry. Better Work will leverage its extensive experience, tools and partnerships to this end. Better Work is an initiative launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Better Work concentrates on occupational safety and health, gender diversity and inclusion including leadership skills, training and career development for women workers, empowering small and medium enterprises with leadership and financial literacy training and a factory improvement toolkit. Better Work will partner with local and international stakeholders to strengthen the commitment of ensuring decent work environments built on gender equality, safety, health, inclusion and holistic empowerment.

The apparel industry is Sri Lanka’s largest exporter, employing nearly one million both directly and indirectly, across 350 manufacturing plants island wide.With the onset of the pandemic, and the subsequent economic crisis, the apparel industry implemented a range of initiatives to ensure that the welfare of workers and their families was a top priority. These included providing additional meals for employees to takehome in order to feed their families, distribution of dry rations, and provision of schoolbooks for children, free medical facilities and transport and customized food packages for expectant women. Approximately 80 per cent of apparel manufacturers make cost-of-living adjustments to salaries over and above annual increments.