Report Challenges Nike’s Wage Claims at Cambodian Supplier
A recent investigation has cast doubt on Nike’s claims regarding wages at its supplier factories, revealing that only 1% of workers at a Cambodian facility earn nearly double the country’s minimum wage.
The report, published on April 25, 2025, by ProPublica, analyzed a detailed payroll data set from Y&W Garment, a Cambodian factory producing baby clothing for Nike and other American brands. The data covered 3,720 employees and showed that just 41 individuals—primarily supervisors, accountants and administrative staff—earned 1.9 times the local minimum wage, a figure Nike has publicly stated reflects the average pay for its contract factory workers.
Workers like 53-year-old Phan Oem, who has spent 12 years packaging clothing at the factory, reportedly earn only the minimum wage of $204 per month, despite logging up to 76 hours per week and working seven days at a stretch. Her experience underscores the continuing challenges faced by garment workers in Cambodia, despite corporate promises of ethical sourcing and competitive compensation.
The findings echo long-standing concerns about labour conditions in Nike’s supply chain, which came under international scrutiny more than two decades ago. At the time, co-founder Phil Knight admitted that Nike had become associated with “slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse.”
In response to the report, Nike reaffirmed its commitment to ethical and responsible manufacturing. “We build long-term relationships with our contract manufacturing suppliers,” the company said in a statement, “because we know having trust and mutual respect supports our ability to create product more responsibly, accelerate innovation and better serve consumers.”
However, the payroll data suggests a significant gap between Nike’s public wage assertions and the reality on the ground for many of its factory workers, raising fresh concerns about transparency and accountability in global supply chains.
