As export orders are trickling in from the US, Europe and West Asia, apparel and knitwear exporting units in Tirupur and Noida are turning to local laborers in the absence of migrant workers who have returned to their native places. While knitwear units in Tirupur have managed to get laborers from the Southern districts of Tamil Nadu to run operations, apparel units in Noida have got about 65,000 workers from Uttar Pradesh. There are 12 million workers engaged in garment manufacturing across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi-National Capital Region and Punjab, among others. Migrant workers constitute about half the workforce.

There are 3,000 garment manufacturing units in the Noida cluster, which generates exports of Rs 20,000 crore annually and also sells garments worth Rs 5,000 crore in the domestic market, he said.

Units in Tirupur, the biggest knitwear cluster in the country, have procured laborers from southern districts of Tamil Nadu to run their operations for the time being. Nearly 40 per cent of the workforce in the state comprises migrant workers. Of these 10 percent have stayed back while others have left, Tirupur exporters will need more manpower from September onwards when garments for the winter season will have to be shipped to the US and Europe.