Member Article

West Midlands suffers highest manufacturing job losses

The West Midlands has fared worst in terms of manufacturing job losses since 2006, reveals GMB union.

Recession has cost 706,300 jobs across UK manufacturing, with the West Midlands suffering 119,000 losses, by far the largest of any region.

The South East followed at 100,800, and the North West at 97,000. Staffordshire topped the area league with 21,100 job cuts with Worcestershire following at 20,100.

According to the research from GMB, an average of 3,398 jobs lost per week during the recession.

The most recent figures shows 2,839,800 employment in 2010/11, when employment had been at 3,546,100 in 2006/7: this fall is on top of the 1.25m drop between 1994/5 and 2006/7.

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, said “The Downing Street led recession accelerated the haemorrhaging of jobs from UK manufacturing. “

“Governments since Thatcher, from both parties, have ignored warnings from GMB and others that this migration of manufacturing jobs is not sustainable.

“This “march of the makers,” two million of them in sixteen years, is the most tragic economic story from Britain in the last two decades.

“Unless action is taken to support and develop manufacturing the economic future for this nation is bleak. Only the British state has enough strength and power to halt and reverse the decline.”

Mr Kenny went on to suggest a number of measures that could help to bolster the sector.

These included the creation of a strategic investment bank to raise large sums of money in the commercial markets, backed by a smaller capital base provided by the government.

He also called for urgent action on skills to deal with the skills shortages affecting the UK, and cited Germany’s dual vocational system as a valuable model.

He added: “There should be a concentration of effort on high skill, high value manufacturing sectors, for example in the field of environmental technology, on those British companies most likely to succeed in the face of global competition.

“UK manufacturing should be used as the supply chain in the multibillion pound capital investment programme needed to up-grade and modernise the UK’s infrastructure.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .