The changes in the retail sector, coupled with a large increase in apparel imports, have had a dramatic impact on the U.S. garment industry. Employment in the apparel manufacturing industry reached its peak of 1.45 million in 1973. New York, once the mainstay of garment firms, has been supplanted by California as the largest garment-producing state. Florida and North Carolina are also large producers of apparel products. Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to sweatshop conditions because of their limited English skills and lack of knowledge of U.S. labor law.
Most sweatshops are unregistered manufacturers who seek to remain out of the public eye.
Many industry analysts perceive a rise in the number of sweatshops in the United States. They say working conditions, in many cases, have worsened over the last few years. In general, the description of today's sweatshops differs little from that at the turn of the century. While some firms have responded to dynamic change in the garment industry by using sweatshop labor, other apparel manufacturers have responded in quite a different way. They have adopted information technologies that allow them to tighten the ties with retailers and textile suppliers.