SAN FRANCISCO - Chinese immigrant workers marched through the streets of downtown San Francisco on Tuesday, shouting slogans and waving signs to protest the loss of garment jobs they say are being shipped to China. More than 120 employees of San Francisco-based apparel maker Nova Knits Inc. claim they were laid off last month without notice, severance pay or benefits in violation of state labor laws. The workers - mostly middle-aged Chinese women who speak little English - believe their jobs are being sent to China, the world's largest clothing manufacturer.

"We believe they continue to have business, but they plan to outsource it overseas," said protest organizer Leon Chow, who heads the Chinese Progressive Association. "All the workers ask for is a little respect."

Nova Knits officials did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Analysts say the end of textile quotas worldwide Jan. 1 accelerated the loss of garment jobs in the United States and other countries, as apparel makers shift more production to low-wage China, which already exports more than $60 billion in textiles and clothing each year.

"There's simply not an economic rationale to keep your sewing in the United States," said Pietra Rivoli, a business professor at Georgetown University and author of "Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy."

For more than three decades, industrialized nations maintained textile import quotas to protect their domestic industries from foreign competition. But starting in 1995, the World Trade Organization started phasing out those quotas, eliminating them altogether this year.

The United States, which once had 2.5 million garment workers, now has about 500,000, mostly in California, New York and the South, Rivoli said. She expects the number of jobs to drop even more now that American retailers can purchase almost all their clothing and textiles from China.

Poor countries like Bangladesh and Morocco, which rely on textile quotas to bolster their struggling economies, are expected to be hit even harder; China already has the largest share of the $350 billion global market.

"We want to fight for our rights," said demonstrator Min Lin, a Nova employee of 13 years who immigrated to the United States in 1992 from Guangdong province, the thriving region of southern China that's become one of the world's largest clothing manufacturers.