The UK is still over-reliant for growth on inflated house prices and low paid jobs.
The UK is still over-reliant for growth on inflated house prices and low paid jobs
This week’s figures from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) show another slowdown in UK manufacturing and again demonstrate that George Osborne’s recovery is built on less than solid foundations.
Four years on from Osborne’s promised ‘March of The Makers’, the re-balancing of the economy has proved to be a failure – with the UK still over-reliant for growth on inflated house prices and low paid, low-skilled jobs in the service sector.
The BCC survey warns that any economic recovery will stall unless the UK’s export performance improves; and experts are predicting that figures later this month from the ONS will show that economic growth slowed between July and September, following 0.9 per cent growth in the second quarter.
The BCC says that that manufacturing growth at the beginning of 2014 has petered out, with companies now running below full capacity and the strong pound making UK manufactured goods more expensive in the world economy.
The survey of 7,000 UK companies also found that manufacturers experienced a slowdown in sales growth at home and abroad in the third quarter.
A balance of +16 per cent of manufacturers reported a rise in export sales, down from +30 per cent in the second quarter. It was the lowest balance since the fourth quarter of 2012. Growth in domestic manufacturing orders is also down on the second quarter.
Unite has been campaigning for an industrial strategy based on investment in manufacturing, re-shoring of the supply chain, the development of a strategic investment bank, the procurement of UK manufactured goods, continued EU membership and a new skills eco system.
Next month Unite will launch its Charter for UK Engineering – ‘Engineering Excellence’. Labour needs to heed the call the charter makes for long-term investment in UK engineering and the creation of decent, skilled jobs to grow the economy.
And it is not just the unions arguing for a strong manufacturing strategy. In a recent poll by the Engineering Employers Federation, ordinary voters said they wanted to see a resurgence of UK industry. In the poll four out of five voters (85 per cent) said they wanted a government which promotes a stronger UK manufacturing base, with 62 per cent believing it will give the country more economic security.
That is why Labour must ensure that an interventionist manufacturing strategy, with decent employment at its heart, is spelt out in the party’s General Election manifesto.
Tony Burke is assistant general secretary of Unite
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23 Responses to “Manufacturing suffers another setback on Osborne’s watch”
Guest
The current government is undermining him, not the same thing at all. Moreover, government interference in business of that nature leads to high inefficiency and crony capitalism.
The UK is in a downwards wage/productivity spiral, with a dangerous bubble in the City. And your revisionism, when your Coalition took a recovery and turned it round into a depression – well!
Germany’s problems are self-inflicted. The UK’s problems are self-inflicted. The common thread is austerity.
Phil Hove
Absolute rubbish – it was Labour that imported millions cheap Labour into the UK that has more than anything else put pressure on wages, (not to mention housing, schools, NHS and national cohesion as well).
Guest
Yes yes, you’re determined to undermine everything and blame the Other, as you push down wages.
Who would be your next target, if you got your way, given things would get worse?
Guest
Oh deaery me, and of course, poor managment had nothng to do with it,
Just a few examples:-
1) A medium sized pharmacueticals company had a top selling drug in Britain and Europe. They let it on license to a US Pharmacuetical company to manufacture and sell in the states. But that company put little effort into marketing the drug until after a few years the US law permitted it to be taken over, whereupon increased marketing effort resulted in a massive increase in sale. POOR MANAGEMENT.
2) the same British company had another drug it was developing and comissioned an american company to put it through clinical trials in the States. It turned out , at the high dose they employed, it had unfavourble outcomes and was refused approval. There was strong suspicion of skulduggery in choice of doses. It may have had unfavourable outcome at lower dose too but it was POOR BRITISH MANAGEMENT that allowed the high dose to be used.
A few years later the British company was shut down.
3) At another British pharmceutical company ignored criticsm of its manufacturing
plant by the American Food and Drug administration and didn’t try to improve hygiene. Enforcement action meant they had to stop sales in the States. POOR MANAGEMENT.
In another division of the same company the senior management were pumping the sales towards the end of the financial year to temporarily boost the share price . They got away with it for three or four years until the market tumbled to what was hapenning. POOR MANAGEMENT.
The company eventually closed.
I could cite variuos examples of BAD MANAGEMENT from the car and motorcycle industries so you see it isn’t just or even partly the Unions at fault.
Guest
There is a lot more to be said:-
That was also an example of BAD MANAGEMENT in the manufacture of cars that rusted to bits, were unreliable and kept breaking down. That was due to poor design and planned obsolescence by management. The British public
stopped buying them and switched to foreign manufactured cars instead. The Mini was taken over by BMW and with improved reliability is still going strong. And wasn’t there some funny financial business with another part of the car industry. That was BAD MANAGEMENT that made the management a large sum of money when the company shut down. So, infact, there is a lot more to be said