AustraliaNews.com.auBack Australia: Manufacturing sector treading water amid soaring energy costs, red tape and ageing workforce
Australian small manufacturers are being squeezed by soaring energy costs, shipping, rent and copycat overseas sellers, with one Sydney T-shirt maker seeing sales drop dramatically.
Fifteen years ago, Warwick Levy took a hair-raising gamble to dump his $75,000 life savings into a T-shirt printing machine.
Sydney T-shirt maker Warwick Levy's Lonely Kids Club is battling surging costs across electricity, shipping, ink and rent, while also fighting offshore copycats on Temu.
His top-selling product dropped from $85,000 to $16,000 in sales after Temu listed AI-scraped copies of roughly 4,000 of his designs, with no compensation paid.
His story reflects the wider struggle for Australia's 90% of manufacturers employing fewer than 20 people, who face rising costs with little buffer to absorb them.
The $55 billion Australian manufacturing sector employs close to one million people, and rising costs are pushing small operators to raise prices or risk closing.
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