The question that is being studied here is of unemployment, and this is clearly not being lost because of imports. The calculations have been made by the Australian Center for Industrial Relations Research and Teaching, and they say facts about the net changes in the rate of employment between 1988 and 1998 in a number of industrial sectors. It can be seen that there is a clear decline in employment in eight sectors of industry during this decade. There was a net loss of about 250,000 jobs and more than sixty percent of the loss was in areas where there was no competition. This concerned employers like Commonwealth Bank, SECV, State Rail NSW, AMP, and the federal public services. (Do imports cost jobs: What's wrong with fair trade?) Compared to this, the total number of people employed in sector of textiles, clothing and footwear manufacture in Australia has been 80.2 thousand as per the figures available for 1998. (Manufacturing employment) The important areas of job loss have been in the manufacture of different products with low import threats, and where the imports come from high wage countries. The exception is in the case of textile, clothing and footwear -- TCF. In the case of these products, the imports are from medium wage countries and that import is 36.0 percent of the total market for these goods in Australia. The largest import is from China, and they are now selling 20 percent of all TCF goods in Australia. (Do imports cost jobs: What's wrong with fair trade?) .

             This has been confirmed at meetings of the productivity commission regarding the future of industry in the city of Melbourne and the state of Victoria. In the public hearing, they have also confirmed that if the recommendations of the commission are implemented then there would be another loss of 30,000 jobs. An industrialist, Brian Rush had this to say about the textile industry - "Commodity sewing, as such, in Australia has a real struggle in front of it.