Portugal: footwear employment holds its own

28/04/2023
New figures from national industry body Apiccaps show that Portugal had 1,186 footwear manufacturing companies at the end of 2022. This represents a fall of around 10% compared to the figure ten years earlier.

At the end of last year, the country’s shoe manufacturers employed a combined total of 32,292 workers. This, too, represents a decline, of 6.7%, compared to 2012.

However, the figure for leathergoods manufacturing is more positive. At the end of last year, Portugal had 142 companies making leathergoods, up by 42% compared to 2012.
These companies were sustaining 3,324 jobs at the end of 2022, a huge increase of 220% compared to 2012.

Similarly, footwear component manufacturers numbered 273 at the end of last year, up by 5.8% over the ten-year period. In the course of those ten years, the number of jobs in footwear component factories increased by 20% to reach 5,114.