Production country
Viet Nam
Vietnam is one of the world's leading garment exporters. Persistent risks around wages, working hours and worker representation sit alongside a sector in transition. Fair Wear works with member brands on the ground to navigate these challenges and drive meaningful improvements for workers and suppliers alike.
Vietnam's textile and garment industry is a major economic contributor, employing more than three million workers, around 75% women, across 7,000 enterprises. The EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement has strengthened access to the European market while reinforcing expectations on labour rights and sustainable production. Production remains labour-intensive and concentrated in industrial hubs, where labour shortages, worker turnover and cost and delivery pressures can contribute to excessive overtime, wage pressure and weak worker–management dialogue. Vietnam’s Labour Code strengthened provisions on workplace dialogue, collective bargaining and worker representation. However, ILO Convention 87 has not been ratified, and provisions for Worker Representative Organisations have not yet been implemented. The sector’s green and digital transition increases the importance of worker consultation, reskilling and responsible purchasing practices.
One of the world’s leading garment-exporting countries, with the US as its largest market and the EU as one of its most important export destinations.
Over 3 million estimated textile and garment workers
202
Factories Fair Wear members source from
29
Fair Wear member brands sourcing from the country
What Fair Wear is doing
How we work locally with partners to address risks and improve working conditions.
Due diligence requires companies to know what is happening in their supply chain. Fair Wear has state of the art risk tools that support brands with identifying and tracking their most urgent risks. In Vietnam, external partners offer extensive risk identification and validation services based on Fair Wear methodologies. Companies can access detailed, stakeholder-validated country risk information and request Fair Wear's Onsite Assessments (Full, Modular and Validation). Companies can also request custom HRDD facilitation support, such as verification activities.
Insight only creates change when you act on it. Fair Wear equips brands with a set of established training modules to raise awareness, address root causes and implement In India, companies can request the Fair Wear Onboarding Training for suppliers and workers, which focuses on awareness-raising on workers' rights and support for social dialogue between workers and management. The Fair Wear Fair Price support visit offers hands-on support with implementation of the Fair Price app, a practical tool for estimating labour costs and building fact-based pricing conversations with suppliers. The Fair Wear Communucation and Factory Dialogue Programme focuses on management-worker dialogue within factories which can lead to better communication and help with addressing grievances and concerns in a timely manner. Moreover, companies can request custom HRDD-related training Over the past two years, Fair Wear has provided capacity-building activities to more than 5,000 workers and managers in factories supplying Fair Wear member brands, 70% of whom were workers.
Staying ahead of risks means knowing about them before they escalate. Fair Wear's grievance mechanism is available in Vietnamese ensuring workers can raise concerns in their own language. The handler assesses the complaint, coordinates with Fair Wear, the relevant member brand and supplier, and follows up on investigation and remediation. The mechanism complements factory-level grievance channels and supports access to remedy when workplace systems are unavailable, unsafe or ineffective.
Fair Wear convenes brands, suppliers, business associations, trade unions, civil-society organisations and technical experts to identify priority risks and develop practical responses. In Vietnam, this includes Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement consultations, supplier seminars, factory-level social dialogue and facilitated worker–management discussions. Recent initiatives have focused on responsible contracting and purchasing practices, living wages, working hours, labour contracts, occupational health and safety, effective factory communication and dialogue, and access to remedy.