Cambodia's garment, footwear and travel goods minimum wage will stay essentially flat at $212 a month in 2027, after 47 of 51 National Minimum Wage Council members voted last Wednesday to hold the base rate at $210 and Prime Minister Hun Manet added $2 by decree. The figure falls $38 short of the $250 that worker representatives demanded, and unions calculate it is below inflation.

Even with allowances, total monthly pay will range from $231.50 to $242.50 next year. Labor rights advocate Khun Tharo, program manager at the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, called the outcome inadequate.

What does the decision mean in real terms?

The $2 increase equals 0.95 percent, against an International Monetary Fund inflation projection of roughly 3.1 percent for 2027. A joint statement from more than 80 unions and civil society groups — including the Asian Floor Wage Alliance and the Clean Clothes Campaign — said an increase of at least $6.51 was needed simply to keep pace with prices, citing joint research by eight union federations surveying 422 workers across 28 factories in Phnom Penh, Kandal and Kampong Speu.

"The $2 increase therefore fails to achieve the most basic benchmark—it is not a raise, but a real-terms wage cut," the statement said. It added that minimum wage increases between 2018 and 2027 have "consistently remained" below inflation.

The vote followed 17 rounds of negotiations. Employers argued they had already raised travel and accommodation allowances by $2.50 per month in April to offset fuel costs tied to Middle East tensions, and warned that further hikes risked factory closures or order diversion to cheaper neighboring countries. Kaing Monika, deputy secretary-general of the Textile, Apparel, Footwear and Travel Goods Association in Cambodia, said the priority amid "continued volatility and uncertainty in the global economy" is to "preserve competitiveness, sustain investment and orders, and protect employment."

Why buyers are watching

The wage decision lands amid continued export strength. Cambodia's exports of garments, textiles, footwear and travel products surpassed $13 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up 7.7 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The same week, a BBC Sport investigation found workers at two Cambodian factories earning a basic wage of less than $1.30 an hour producing Adidas-branded soccer jerseys for clubs including Arsenal, Celtic, Liverpool and Real Madrid. Workers described producing more than 700 items a day in temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, alongside verbal abuse when targets were missed and electrical safety concerns.

Adidas said average net wages across a sample of its Cambodian suppliers run 34 percent above the Anker Research Institute's living-wage benchmark, that staff are "usually paid considerably higher than the local minimum wage," and that it conducts around 1,200 factory audits per year. Anna Bryher, advocacy lead at Labour Behind the Label, said Adidas "has enormous power in its supply chain and can choose to pay a living wage," citing the 8.8 million euros ($9.9 million) CEO Bjørn Gulden is set to receive this year.

Can brand-backed bargaining close the gap?

IndustriALL Global Union's ACT initiative — which in 2024 brought together brands including Asos, H&M Group and PVH Corp. to link purchasing practices to local collective bargaining — renewed a template agreement in June running through 2029. Participating factories pay a $6 monthly top-up, rising to $9 in January 2028.

The Clean Clothes Campaign's living wage coordinator Anne Bienas called that insufficient: "With the impact of the tariffs and the war near the border areas, workers are in big trouble, and $6 is not going to help them." She questioned whether ACT is "mainly a facade used by brands" or a genuine effort at change.

IndustriALL's textile sector director Christina Hajagos-Clausen defended the program, saying ACT has given affiliates "a space to bargain collectively in a way that does not exist in many other places in the region." Cambodian unions backing ACT, including CUMW, CCAWDU and FFTU, called it "the first time in the global garment industry that brands are included in a binding wage support structure" and urged more brands to commit.

ACT's footprint remains small — fewer than a dozen factories out of roughly 1,500 nationwide — and two of its union backers also signed the statement pressing the wage council to reconsider the $250 minimum. With the 2027 rate now set, attention shifts to whether buyer-funded mechanisms, rather than the council, can close a gap the official process has left widening.