A labor-intensive product
Producing lace hair products requires a substantial amount of skilled, manual work. Labor costs therefore have a significant effect on the final cost of lace pieces.
surged after production routes were disrupted
What changed
Much of the lace-product production used by Chinese hair suppliers was carried out in North Korea, where lower labor costs helped keep production costs down.
North Korea sealed its border in response to COVID-19, interrupting the existing production routes for lace products.
Lace products then had to be produced in China, where the higher labor costs caused production expenses to increase substantially.
The border closure and the resulting change in production location significantly increased the cost of producing lace pieces at that time.