COVID-19 Crisis and the Informal Economy in Tiruppur, India: Lasting Impacts and an Agenda for Recovery

Abstract

Known as the “T-Shirt Capital of the World”, Tiruppur is the seventh largest city in Tamil Nadu State, South India. Around 800,000 workers are employed in the knitwear industry, of whom 80,000 (10%) are homeworkers; that is, subcontracted workers who are paid by the piece and work in or around their own homes. Over 90% of homeworkers in Tiruppur are women. This report presents the TIruppur findings from Round 2 of the WIEGO-led COVID-19 Crisis and the Informal Economy study that was conducted in mid-year 2021 to assess how specific groups of informal workers and their households were experiencing COVID-19 resurgences and ongoing economic strains, and to what extent (if any) they had recovered.