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In her last weeks working on the goods receiving shift at the JC Penney department store in her city, Alexandra Orozco pulled out her mobile phone and pressed the record key.
The 22-year-old recorded videos of herself and her colleagues sliding down a metal warehouse ramp (originally intended for empty boxes) laughing out loud, and posted them on TikTok.
Another video, which was uploaded to the platform on October 13, shows the gigantic black and red posters with the banner “Total Clearance” that hung from the ceiling to the floor and a haunting image of a half-empty section of the basement.
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"Getting out of work little by little," he put as a caption a few days before the Delano, California, establishment closed for good.
The store is one of 156 JC Penneys across the United States that lowered the blind between June and December 2020.
Orozco began working there part-time when she was 18 years old, and in almost four years she rose from cashier to associate with the merchandise team, unloading trucks full of new stock and taking inventory.
Four days a week he would arrive at the store around four or five in the morning.
That early schedule suited him.
Although Orozco liked her job, the crowds made her nervous.
Now, since she was fired, she has been under stress.
She has applied for a couple of jobs - one babysitting and one delivering flowers - but at the time she attended this interview, she had received no response.
"It's a shame," he explains over the phone from home with the soft sound of a television in the background.
“I never thought it would happen.
Delano is a small town.
There are not many stores.
It is difficult to find a job here ”.
On the other side of the world, Matefo Litali was also affected by the cataclysm.
The 53-year-old experienced seamstress worked for the past 14 years in tailoring workshops throughout Lesotho, a small mountainous country surrounded by South African territory.
Tzicc Clothing, which makes clothes for US giants JC Penney and Walmart, wore it for two months before, in March 2020, national lockdown measures forced all factories to temporarily close.
On May 6, Litali returned to work, but the next day, at the end of her shift, the management told her not to return.
Tzicc confirmed that the worker's last day was May 7.
"I felt powerless," he recalls.
"The first thing that crossed my mind was, why me?"
The future remains uncertain for the 53-year-old skilled seamstress, who for the past 14 years has worked in garment factories across Lesotho.Neo Ntsoma / The Fuller Project
These two women have never met, nor are they likely to match. One lives in a remote farming town on the west coast of the United States; the other, some 10,000 miles away, in southern Africa, in one of the smallest countries in the world. This past year, their lives - and their livelihoods - were connected by a pandemic that has disrupted one of the world's supply chains and, with it, their economies. The confinements by covid-19 have devastated a retail sector that was already struggling to survive before the arrival of the coronavirus, which has contributed to the collapse of the global clothing market and has caused serious damage to millions of workers, the vast majority women like Orozco and Litali.
In Lesotho, which has a population of 2.1 million, the effects of the pandemic were immediately apparent. Over the last two decades, its textile industry experienced enormous growth, becoming the main employer in the country with a contribution of more than 20% to the national GDP. Much of its success is due to the trade agreement called the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), signed in 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton, which allows duty-free exports to the United States. Today Lesotho garment workers, 90% women, make clothes for some of America's most iconic brands like Levi Strauss, Wrangler, Macy's and Walmart.
Although Lesotho's textile industry is less well known than that of the Chinese or Bangladeshi powers, it is another example of an economy heavily dependent on US demand.
According to the latest data available from the World Trade Organization, corresponding to 2017, outside the African continent, the United States is the main recipient of exports from Lesotho, with around 50%.
And while the country has emerged relatively unscathed from the coronavirus with fewer than 11,000 registered cases from inception to April 2021, the consequences of the severe US lockdown measures have permeated Lesotho's industry with equally devastating effect.
And when a large American retailer goes under, the effects are felt around the world.
Neil Saunders, Managing Director GlobalData Retail
Meanwhile, apparel retailers in the United States have been particularly hard hit. Although JC Penney had ceased to be profitable in 2010, last May the department store chain filed for bankruptcy after 118 years of history. Six months later it was acquired by another company, but a source with close knowledge of the situation confirmed that during the restructuring it had already reduced its staff by about 10,000 workers, which was about 11% of its workforce in the United States. This year, the bankruptcies of large retailers in the country have exploded. J. Crew, Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers are three examples of the 46 registered in 2020 based on S&P Global trade data.
"And when a large American retailer goes under," explains Neil Saunders, managing director of research firm GlobalData Retail, "the effects are felt across the globe."
The United States is one of the world's leading clothing importers, accounting for about a quarter of total global retail business spending. At the beginning of the pandemic, when US retailers canceled or unpaid orders already placed worth billions of dollars, the effects quickly spread through the supply chain on a global scale. Thousands of international garment factories closed, resulting in widespread layoffs and suspensions of employees, like the one at Litali in Lesotho. The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that, between January and June 2020, in the United States the import of clothing fell by 26%, representing a loss of 17,000 million for factories around the planet compared to the same period of the previous year.
Although Lesotho's textile industry is less well known than that of the Chinese or Bangladeshi powers, it is another example of an economy heavily dependent on US demand.
"Even if JC Penney was not profitable, it was still an important business," Saunders estimates.
"He still places a lot of orders from suppliers and maintains a large number of jobs around the world, so the consequences are far-reaching."
At Tzicc Clothing, where Litali worked, about a fifth of employees have lost their jobs since May, reports Tsepang Makakole of the National Garment, Textile and Allied Workers Union (NACTWU). ) from Lesotho.
Makakole knows of at least six factories that have closed across the country, leaving thousands unemployed.
"For women it is a disaster," she adds.
"Most of those who work in the factories are mothers of single parents and, right now, the sector is facing a total collapse."
Seamstress Litali says her legs gave out when she was told that she was suddenly out of work.
In the 1990s, multitudes of Taiwanese and Chinese garment factories relocated to Lesotho.
Litali says that she was one of the first women taught to sew.
In Tzicc, she sat at her table five days a week and made gymnastics t-shirts and leggings with an old, worn sewing machine.
The factory was one-story, with exposed brick walls, and more than 1,000 women were huddled inside.
Matefo Litali rushes home to prepare food for his family. Except on weekends, each day he starts work at 7:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m., as long as he is not working overtime.Neo Ntsoma / The Fuller Project
Litali has been a widow for eight years and is responsible for her youngest daughter, 20, and her four-year-old grandson. During the confinement, his boss took three months to pay him the 94 dollars of his last salary, until May. Tzicc Clothing also alleged that Litali was not entitled to the $ 160 monthly subsidy from the government because his contract was on probation. Malekena Ntsiki, organizer of the Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho (IDUL), complained both issues to Tzicc on behalf of Litali, and states that the government subsidy is intended for all workers, regardless of their type of contract . Tzicc Clothing's director of human resources, Masefatsa Mofolo, confirmed that the company had laid off workers due to fewer orders,and that Litali had lost her job. According to the manager, all employees with a contract on probation were fired during the pandemic.
While waiting for his last check, Litali received no income or support for three months. His family survived on food packages from the local church until the paycheck arrived. "I was so nervous that I thought I was going to go crazy," she recalls. “I spent the day at home sleeping, doing nothing. I didn't want to talk to anyone or ask for help. "
At one point, he thought about the possibility of marrying his partner, an electrician who paid his wages. “I thought yes, that I was older, but that I was having a hard time and that there was a person. Maybe marriage could be of some help, "he says half jokingly. The couple was together for a couple of months, but has now separated. In California, Orozco occasionally walks past the JC Penney store in town on his way to the bank. There are no commercial signs on the windows and the doors are closed. "It's very sad," he laments. “I got along very well with the cleaning lady who worked here. He gave me remedies for insomnia. I was very sad to know that I would probably never see her again. "
A JC Penney spokesman declined to comment on the effect of its nationwide store closures.
Although Orozco lives with his parents, he still has to pay his car and phone bills.
When JC Penney's store closed temporarily in March in compliance with anticovid measures, he was unemployed for three months and applied for unemployment benefit.
She used the time to improve her second source of income: a makeup products business.
He launched Glossy Baby Cosmetics.
Sell false eyelashes, lip gloss, and clothing through Instagram.
The young woman spends hours searching for products online and then buys in bulk when she finds something she likes.
"Now my room looks like a tornado," he says, referring to the stacks of boxes.
Alexandra Orozco in her bedroom, where she runs her beauty company Glossy Baby Cosmetics, in Delano, Calif. Madeline Tolle / The Fuller Project
It is still early days and people are not spending as much as they used to.
In December 2020, Orozco was making between $ 200 and $ 300 a month in sales from his new online business, about five times less than his salary at JC Penney.
The dismissal has also affected his mental health.
Orozco suffers from bouts of depression and often feels like giving up her recent business activity, but is quickly convinced not to do so by her family.
Her mother, Luz, who is 42 years old, immigrated to the United States from Mexico at 13 and started her own party planning business, is especially persuasive.
Even if he gave up, Orozco's options are limited.
Delano is just over a two-hour drive from Los Angeles, has about 50,000 residents and jobs are scarce, the young woman says.
JC Penney was one of the few remaining chain stores in the city, and many of Orozco's colleagues have also not found another job since the stores closed.
Although it is not impossible for it to recover, the fall in demand for clothing shows no signs of stopping
“It didn't have many employees, but the store was important to Delano,” he explains. “People are very sad. It was the only place where they sold nice, branded clothes, like Levi's. And it had been around for a long time. My mother used to go shopping there with her mother ”. While it is not impossible for it to recover, the drop in demand for clothing shows no signs of stopping, notes GlobalData's Saunders. According to the advance of monthly sales data published by the United States Census Bureau, in October 2020 sales decreased 4.2% compared to the previous month.
"If this continues, in 2021 and beyond, it could have serious [lasting] consequences for clothing supply chains," adds the executive.
“In a context of low demand, prices become a major problem.
Actors compete with each other and workers often suffer the consequences through working conditions, rights, wages and hours ”.
Litali and Orozco's life became uncertain.
In Lesotho, Litali spent several months waiting patiently at the gates of various garment factories in search of work.
In August, she got a job sewing jeans at Presitex, a factory close to that of the company where she previously worked, but her contract is temporary and, as the months go by, she fears that it will not be renewed.
When he learned that renting a kiosk in his city's shopping center cost $ 5,000 every two months, Orozco began looking for more profitable ways to boost his Instagram business.
He hopes to save enough to open a physical store.
"Right now I don't know whether to risk it and invest a little more in the business or pay the bills," he doubts.
“It's a lot of stress, but it's worth it, you know.
I know that one day it will be worth it ”.
This article was originally published in English as part of the partnership between The Associated Press and
The Fuller Project.
Additional Research: Refiloe Makhaba Nkune.
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