Fashion employment spans global textile and garment production, specialized design occupations, retail work, and related footwear and leather activities. The figures below keep those populations separate, identify measurement periods and geographies, and distinguish estimates, surveys, observed counts, and forecasts.
Key Fashion Employment Statistics
These highlights summarize the most broadly useful measures:
- In 2019, approximately 91 million people worked in global textiles and garments worldwide, according to an ILO-cited estimate.
- In 2019, about 50 million women were included in the global textiles-and-garments estimate of approximately 91 million workers.
- Women represented about 80% of global garment-manufacturing employment in a literature-based estimate whose period is not stated in the report passage.
- In 2019, more than 5% of working women in Asia and the Pacific worked in textiles and garments.
- In 2016, nearly 80% of Cambodia’s garment, textile and footwear workforce were women.
- In 2016, female Cambodian GTF workers earned approximately 87% of male GTF workers’ income.
- In 2016, four out of five Cambodian GTF workers were younger than 35.
- Pakistan’s GTF sector reached 4.2 million workers in 2014/15.
- From 2012 to 2019, real average monthly wages for all Cambodian GTF employees grew 11.7% annually.
- From 2010 to 2015, Indonesia’s female GTF employees had 4.7% annual real average monthly wage growth.
- The United States had 19,940 fashion designers in May 2023.
- U.S. fashion designers had a $79,290 median annual wage in May 2023.
- The lowest-paid 10% of U.S. fashion designers earned less than $37,090 annually in May 2023.
- BLS projected about 2,500 fashion-designer openings per year in the United States from 2025 to 2035.
- U.S. clothing and clothing-accessories stores employed 1,152.0 thousand people in August 2026, preliminarily.
- Clothing and clothing-accessories stores had 112,860 private establishments in the fourth quarter of 2021.
- New York-Newark-Jersey City employed 6,350 fashion designers in May 2024.
Contents
- Global fashion employment scale
- Gender and household reach
- Asian garment employment and wage trends
- U.S. fashion designer employment and pay
- U.S. apparel retail and production jobs
- Fashion employment by metro and workplace measure
Global Fashion Employment Statistics and Sector Scale
The ILO describes textiles and clothing as providing jobs to over 90 million people, predominantly women. A more specific ILO-cited estimate places combined global textiles and garment employment at approximately 91 million workers in 2019, but that population is not apparel alone.
- About 50 million of the approximately 91 million workers were women in the 2019 global textiles-and-garments estimate.
- Women accounted for about 80% of employment in garment manufacturing in a literature-based estimate; garment manufacturing is narrower than the combined textile and apparel sectors.
- In Asia and the Pacific, more than 5% of working women worked in textiles and garments in 2019.
These measures describe paid or labor-force employment within sector definitions used by the source. They do not count unpaid household production, and the rounded global summary should not be treated as a census of every fashion occupation.
Source: The state of the apparel and footwear industry: Employment, automation and their gender dimensions (International Labour Organization).
Gender, Age, and Household Reach in Fashion Employment Data
Gender is central to interpreting fashion employment statistics, but the available measures differ by sector and country. Cambodia’s 2016 garment, textile and footwear profile gives a detailed example of workforce composition and regular employment.
| Cambodia GTF measure | 2016 result | Population or definition |
|---|---|---|
| Women’s share of workforce | Nearly 80% | Garment, textile and footwear workforce |
| Female-to-male income ratio | Approximately 87% | Sector income comparison |
| Workforce able to read | More than 90% | GTF workforce literacy measure |
| Workers younger than 35 | Four out of five | Surveyed GTF workers |
| Regular employment and income | More than 90% | Bulletin’s GTF definition |
Female GTF workers’ income was approximately 87% of male GTF workers’ income in 2016. This is a sector-specific income comparison, not an adjusted pay-gap estimate, and the literacy result measures the ability to read rather than educational attainment.
In the wider Asia-Pacific comparison, textiles and garments employed more than 5% of working women in 2019, versus a smaller share of working men according to the ILO comparison. In Europe’s textile, clothing and footwear industries, an ILO-cited estimate found that men earned 20% to 30% more than women; that rounded literature estimate is not necessarily adjusted for occupation or hours.
Source: The state of the apparel and footwear industry: Employment, automation and their gender dimensions (International Labour Organization).
Asian Garment Employment Statistics, Wages, and Productivity Trends
The ILO’s Asian garment-sector research combines employment profiles with real wage-growth measures. GTF refers to garments, textiles, footwear and leather in the country-sector data, so these figures should not be read as apparel-only employment.
Pakistan’s GTF employment reached 4.2 million workers in 2014/15, expanding at an average annual rate of 6.2% from 2010/11 to 2014/15. Within Pakistan’s 2014/15 GTF employment, garment production represented 53.6%, textiles 41.4%, and footwear and leather 5.0%.
| Country or group | Period | Real average monthly wage growth | Measure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cambodia, all GTF employees | 2012–2019 | 11.7% annually | Compound annual growth |
| Cambodia, female GTF employees | 2012–2019 | 12.2% annually | Compound annual growth |
| Cambodia, male GTF employees | 2012–2019 | 9.7% annually | Compound annual growth |
| Indonesia, all GTF employees | 2010–2015 | 2.9% annually | Compound annual growth |
| Indonesia, female GTF employees | 2010–2015 | 4.7% annually | Compound annual growth |
| Indonesia, male GTF employees | 2010–2015 | 0.7% annually | Compound annual growth |
Indonesia’s wearing-apparel employees recorded 4.5% annual real average monthly wage growth from 2010 to 2015. Leather-and-footwear employees recorded 3.2%, while female leather-and-footwear employees recorded 5.7%; these are real wage-growth measures, not nominal wage levels.
The median age of Pakistan’s GTF workforce was 29 years in the ILO’s 2014/15 profile. Women had a median age of 27 years compared with 30 years for men, so the age figures describe a sector profile rather than the entire Pakistani labor force.
Source: Employment, wages and productivity trends in the Asian garment sector: data and policy insights for the future of work (International Labour Organization).
U.S. Fashion Designer Employment Statistics, Pay, and Outlook
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS data identified 19,940 fashion designers in May 2023. These are occupational survey estimates and exclude unmeasured informal work; the employment relative standard error was 5.1% and the wage relative standard error was 10.4%.
| U.S. fashion designer measure | May 2023 result | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Employment | 19,940 | Designers |
| Mean hourly wage | $46.65 | U.S. dollars per hour |
| Mean annual wage | $97,030 | U.S. dollars per year |
| Median annual wage | $79,290 | U.S. dollars per year |
| Lowest-paid 10% | Less than $37,090 | U.S. dollars per year |
| Highest-paid 10% | More than $160,850 | U.S. dollars per year |
Industry placement varied within the occupation. Apparel, piece-goods and notions merchant wholesalers employed 7,820 fashion designers in May 2023, while cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing employed 1,750.
The BLS projected fashion-designer employment to rise from 32,700 in 2025 to 32,800 in 2035, equivalent to 0% projected employment change after rounding. It also projected about 2,500 openings per year during 2025–2035, mostly replacement needs rather than net new jobs.
Sources: Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2023: 27-1022 Fashion Designers and Fashion Designers: Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
U.S. Apparel Retail and Production Employment Statistics
Retail employment is a much larger population than the specialized fashion-designer occupation. For clothing and clothing-accessories stores, the BLS CES series reported 1,152.0 thousand employees in August 2026, preliminarily, including 940.9 thousand production and nonsupervisory employees.
The 2025 BLS OEWS industry-by-occupation estimates show how store employment is distributed across common roles:
- Retail salespersons accounted for 688,310 jobs in U.S. clothing and clothing-accessories stores in 2025.
- First-line supervisors and managers of retail sales workers accounted for 122,930 jobs in the same industry in 2025.
- Cashiers accounted for 75,140 jobs in U.S. clothing and clothing-accessories stores in 2025.
- Tailors, dressmakers and custom sewers accounted for 4,680 jobs in the industry in 2025.
The custom-sewer figure does not count home-based or informal sewing outside the industry. The CES, OEWS, IIF and QCEW figures come from different BLS programs, so their populations and methods are not interchangeable.
Workplace measures add context without being job counts. In 2024, the total recordable injury and illness rate in U.S. clothing and clothing-accessories stores was 1.5 cases per 100 full-time workers, while cases involving days away from work, job restriction or transfer occurred at a rate of 0.6 per 100 full-time workers.
Source: Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores: NAICS 448 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Where Fashion Jobs Are Concentrated: Metros and Establishments
Fashion employment is geographically concentrated, especially for designers. In May 2024, the largest listed metro employment levels included New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, followed by smaller concentrations in Portland, Boston, Seattle and Miami.
| Metropolitan area | Fashion designers, May 2024 |
|---|---|
| New York-Newark-Jersey City | 6,350 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim | 4,580 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro | 930 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton | 570 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue | 510 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach | 160 |
These are BLS OEWS metropolitan estimates for fashion designers, not total fashion-sector employment. They therefore exclude many retail, production, logistics and support jobs that appear in broader industry measures.
For a different view of the U.S. clothing retail footprint, private clothing and clothing-accessories stores had 112,576 establishments in the first quarter of 2021 and 112,860 in the fourth quarter of 2021. An establishment is not the same as an employer or a job, so these QCEW counts should not be added to employment totals.
Source: OEWS Chart: Areas with the highest employment level for Fashion Designers, May 2024 and Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores: NAICS 448 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).