"Cambodia's New Minimum Wage Will ‘Increase Pressure' on Garment Workers", 22 September 2025

The Cambodian government has approved a new monthly minimum wage of $210 for the Southeast Asian nation's nearly 1 million garment, footwear, textile and travel goods workers, a significant downgrade from the $232 that trade unions and civil society organizations were not only asking for, but demanding…

But the barely 1 percent increment won't even cover inflation, which is expected to rise to 2.5 percent in 2025 before softening to 2.3 percent in 2026. As such, workers will be forcing themselves to work without rest in order to shoulder the intensifying weight of daily expenses, said Tharo Khun, program manager at the Center of Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, the workers' rights group better known as CENTRAL…

"The question is who bears the responsibility for workers amid the rising costs and inflation," Khun said, noting the lack of "genuine" worker representation on the National Minimum Wage Council due to what human rights defenders characterize as the government's open repression of the labor movement, including through the adoption of laws that significantly curtail the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.

They cited the Asia Floor Wage Alliance's 2024 Consumption Survey, which found that workers spent roughly $408 on food and non-food items, or double their average income of $250. In a report that ActionAid Australia, CENTRAL and other organizations affiliated with the Clean Clothes Campaign published in 2023, 65 percent of surveyed workers said that they couldn't make their wages stretch until the end of the month, pushing them to take on loans or add hours to their already 48-hour workweek…

… Khun said that, on a broader level, U.S. tariffs, the climate crisis, corporate realignments, geopolitical realignments and the aftershocks of the pandemic are reshaping the landscape for workers, but "mostly without their participation."

… "As production becomes more fragmented and capital more fluid, we continue to see wage depression as buyers demand lower prices with shorter lead times, increasing pressure on workers," he added…