Footwear Industry

The global industry that designs, manufactures and sells footwear, garments worn on the feet primarily for protection but also for movement, injury prevention and decoration or status. The industry has undergone significant restructuring, with the number of European footwear firms falling from about 27,000 in 2005 to 21,700 by 2009, while the United States industry generated 48 billion dollars in annual revenue as of 2012 even as employment declined due to rising imports. China has produced more than half of the world's shoes since around 2000, though it captures less than 36 percent of the trade's value because American and German brands still dominate. Footwear is typically made from leather or plastic combined with rubber, and the industry was transformed by mechanization, most notably Jan Ernst Matzeliger's 1880 automated lasting machine, which raised a worker output from roughly 20 to 50 pairs a day to about 700.