Textile makers struggle to find workers

Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA

Textiles, once a signature craft of Philadelphia industry, teeters on the brink of extinction, with 178 companies left in a city that once housed many times that.

There are hopes of sustaining the sector — mainly by connecting it with a younger generation of more design-oriented artisans.

But to do so, the textile-manufacturing sector must overcome a daunting calculus: Are enough skilled workers available to keep the existing companies alive long enough for the young entrepreneurs to grow enough business and expertise to sustain them?

As Philadelphia’s factories closed, their workers moved on — and now manufacturers say it’s a challenge to find the skilled workers they need.

“If you want to find a sewing operator, or someone who knows how to cut fabric, or someone who knows how to dye fabric, or fix a knitting machine, those are hard competencies to find,” said Mark Sunderland, assistant dean of design, engineering and commerce at Philadelphia University, founded in 1884 as the Philadelphia Textile School.

On a recent weeknight, however, the optimists convened in Frankford at the first gathering in recent memory of the city’s textile sector. Old-line manufacturers and the young artisans met and mingled at Global Dye Works, a former textile factory that is now a warren of artists’ studios.

Steve Jurash, head of the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia, and Karen Randal, director of the city Commerce Department’s office of business attraction and retention, organized the event.

“All too often, we hear that manufacturing is dead in Philadelphia,” Jurash told the group. To him, the fact that 178 textile manufacturers remain is proof that “manufacturing is very much alive.”

But, as he said that night, 56 percent of local textile manufacturers surveyed said they had trouble attracting skilled workers.

“The thing that concerns me the most is that the average age [of textile employees] is 49,” Jurash said. “Who is coming up behind them?”

“No one,” someone in the group called out.

Decades ago, the city’s textile industry employed thousands of Philadelphians. Now, the average company employs 13.

Even as recently as 2001, 4,500 people worked in textile and apparel manufacturing in Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. By 2010, that number dropped below 2,100.

The fading of Philadelphia’s textile sector is not just attributable to the global push for cheaper labor. “It was the growth of the mass consumer market,” said Walter Licht, a University of Pennsylvania history professor.

“Our textile industry was highly specialized and did not compete with the large-scale, standardized cloth producers of New England,” he said.

In Philadelphia, before a fabric got to a cutting floor, it might have moved through a half-dozen companies, each highly specialized in a component of fabric manufacturing, from spinning to dying to finishing.

The result was a high-quality product that attracted high-quality, high-cost manufacturers. But mass consumption, fueled by the rise of stores such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., required low-cost mass production — not Philadelphia’s strong suit, Licht said.

Even today, the remnants of Philadelphia’s textile industry reflect that heritage — high craftsmanship and high specialization for niche markets. In fact, that characteristic fuels Jurash’s and Randal’s hopes for collaboration between the young artisans at the industry event and the old-line manufacturers who still operate plants in the city.

For example, in attendance were David Littlewood, owner of G.J. Littlewood & Son, founded in 1869, the oldest surviving dye house in Philadelphia, and partners Mira Adornetto and Elissa Meyers, founders of BlueRedYellow, a city dye business so fledgling that the company doesn’t have a phone number.

Randal said she hoped the event would connect design students from the region’s universities with companies able to sew, create patterns, cut fabric, create specialty dyes, create specialty fabrics and manufacture samples.

“We graduate these wonderful trained designers,” she said, who move to New York or abroad to manufacture.

Designer Sarah Van Aken had been manufacturing her line in Bangladesh. Now her factory, S.V.A. Holdings Corp., employing 14, sits atop her Sa Va boutique in Philadelphia.

“My youngest employee is in her 40s, and there is no one coming up behind them,” Van Aken said.