However, workers were later allowed back in or told to return by the factory owners.
On Monday, the government agreed to allow garment workers to form trade unions without permission from factory owners.
The government ordered factory owners to continue paying workers in factories that were closed.
Local factory owners said overheads were rising and complained that it was increasingly hard to find staff.
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Because of the failure to price water properly, factory owners and peasants alike use too much of it.
For factory owners, the ability to recruit workers is a matter of survival.
WSJ: China Factories Try Karaoke, Speed Dating to Keep Workers
China's deep supply-chain network is hard to replicate quickly elsewhere, making it difficult for some factory owners to move.
Factory owners Vion and one of the bidders both issued statements criticising each other over aspects of the bid.
For years, U.S. companies have worked closely with Chinese factory owners to improve production times and reduce error rates.
For years, American companies have worked closely with Chinese factory owners to improve production times and reduce error rates.
Garment factory owners and Western retailers are likely to face tough questions from labour rights campaigners in the coming weeks.
BBC: Dhaka collapse: Rescue operation's search for survivors
Some factory owners say that conditions are more difficult now than they were in 2008, at the beginning of the global downturn.
The shortage of land and a propensity for flooding in Bangladesh has prompted many factory owners to build up, rather than out.
WSJ: Before Bangladesh Collapse, Some Clothing Retailers Fled Risk
Some company and factory owners have moved to Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan and that means the money has moved to these places.
Factory owners have been doing such things for survival ever since Frederick W. Taylor invented time-and-motion studies more than a century ago.
Rescue officials also say they do not know exactly how many people are still missing as factory owners have not given them precise figures.
There is no unified labor code in place and in the past, disputes between workers and factory owners have been settled with government arbitration.
It doesn't cover the scores of other factories that sometimes wind up with retailers' orders after authorized factory owners subcontract the deals to other, unapproved manufacturers.
On Sunday, Bangladesh's textile minister said he will soon start talks with labor groups and factory owners to agree on a new minimum wage for the industry.
As part of the legally binding agreement, retailers would be liable when there's a factory fire and would have to pay factory owners more to make repairs.
Factory owners profit because local workers cannot match the speed, accuracy and stamina of workers from Asia, as officials at the Jamaican export promotion agency have reluctantly admitted.
One man rescued from the building told the BBC that factory owners had told workers on Wednesday morning "not to worry" and that "they said they had examined the crack".
Now that the peak floods appear to have passed the main industrial areas around Bangkok factory owners will be assessing the damage and starting the process of getting their facilities back on-line.
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U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the collapse underscored the "urgent need" for the Bangladesh government, as well as the factory owners, buyers and labor groups, to improve working conditions in the country.
After boosting pay to compete with other manufacturers, factory owners are finding money alone no longer is enough to attract and retain a generation of workers that demand a greater work-life balance than their parents did.
WSJ: China Factories Try Karaoke, Speed Dating to Keep Workers
Many factory owners who couldn't afford to build new buildings because of the high cost of land and limited access to utilities converted hundreds of residential and other buildings into makeshift garment factories to keep up with the demand from Western retailers, labor groups say.
WSJ: Before Bangladesh Collapse, Some Clothing Retailers Fled Risk
But marine energy will not be competitive with wind for many years, and it is hard to see why, having missed the opportunity to build wind turbines, Britain's factory-owners will be more adroit when it comes to ocean power.
The big question is: Will the political parties respond to public outrage and finally bring negligent factory and building owners to book?
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