You have to be able to make and sell something to keep the country afloat
Interesting - even if it is in the Torygraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8238736/Manufacturing-growth-How-the-UK-compares-with-the-rest-of-the-world.html
Yes but what are they making?
The Guardian celebrates a small soap maker as an example. I'm not knocking them at all, it looks like a nice successful business, but it's
definitely not what I think of as manufacturing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jan/01/make-money-2011-make-things?INTCMP=SRCH
Its all UK manufacturing, it doesnt matter what you make, be it soap or hypercars. The main thing is you have a physical product to sell.
You have to be able to make and sell something to keep the country afloat
the devaluation of the pound will certainly have helped our exports.
It is often forgotten that we are 6th in the world by industrial output, behind:
US
China
Japan
Germany
Italy
maybe this will put us up to 5th.
Matt
It's OK spouting about this.
We are 6th. but miles behind the rest.
The UK needs manufacturing jobs for a million youngsters, and that can only come from the private sector.
Blood hell its like grumpy old men in here isn't it? Remember the only reason UK manufacturing died in the first place is we let it get overrun
by the unions and stood still for 20 years due to the resistance to change, whilst everyone else pushed on. Irrespective of any government
involvement.
Its got to be a growing industry before you can create the jobs. You cant magically give 1m people a job in a dying industry, in a growing industry
you can start to encourage people to take that route and start employing more people. Maybe the news that UK manufacturing is growing will start to
offer this encouragement.
quote:
Originally posted by flak monkey
Blood hell its like grumpy old men in here isn't it? Remember the only reason UK manufacturing died in the first place is we let it get overrun by the unions and stood still for 20 years due to the resistance to change, whilst everyone else pushed on. Irrespective of any government involvement.
Its got to be a growing industry before you can create the jobs. You cant magically give 1m people a job in a dying industry, in a growing industry you can start to encourage people to take that route and start employing more people. Maybe the news that UK manufacturing is growing will start to offer this encouragement.
It may have been the unions that messed things up before, but for a long time it's been the government. They see any kind of busoness as a cash
cow that can be continuously milked. Not just for taxes and commercial business rates but all the impositions that anybody who wants to employ
somebody has to labour under- such as maternity benefit and the automatic right to an industrial tribunal after a year.
How about a radical new idea, bring it 'at will' employment? They have it in most of the States. What it means is if an employer no longer
wants any particular employee, they can just sack them. Likewise an employee can leave if he wants to (which here they can do anyway). What better way
of keeping employees keen and productive than that they should know that they can be let go at anytime?
I wish to be enlightened here!
If we can get manufacturing back in the UK, I believe we should all support that, but there has to be a market for us to supply to. Perhaps some of
you younger, more up to date, and informed types can either confirm or remove some of my preconceptions, seriously?
My views
1) We lost manufacturing in the UK because of lack of investment in machinery/plant to produce the goods?
2) The manufacturing work went out to China and India etc due to cheap labour and the consumer would rather pay 1/4 the price, for goods made in
India/China/Taiwan etc. have them transported half way around the world, have duties paid for import etc. Then have pride in goods made in the UK
supporting our standard of living?
3) Goods made in Japan, China etc. are generally of better quality the British made?
Some of these beliefs come from things stated in the media, such as paper's, car magazines, TV etc. The countless tales of poor British
workmanship on cars or other goods when compared to imports from other countries. Honda & Nissan cars when compared to the Dagenham Friday
afternoon cars.
That we still have, allegedly, Major chain stores, having clothing made in sweat shops by kids paid a few pence per day, to supply T-shirts and other
clothing to us for a few pounds leading to our own textile industries go to waste, and we even exported our own machines to them. As a general
consumer we just go for cheapest.
That we have to rely on foreign workers to fill the skills gap and the jobs the British do not want to do for the level of pay. In fact some even say
they have a better work ethic to get the job done then "home grown".
That is how I see it after talking to other companies over the years, I must also state that in some ways I have benefited from some of this. For
example. I picked up a Harrison Flashcap Lathe from a company in Irlam who made a specialist product. It was a bargain deal to me at the time even
when I considered having to hire a trailer and take a day's holiday to transport the machine. The company was selling several machines as they
found it was more viable to have the parts manufactured in China by CNC and have them imported for assembly in the UK. price was better and so was
quality! So no consideration for long term investment in getting their own CNC centre, I also assume their staff dropped as they went from skilled
machine operators to semi-skill assembly production. A Harrison Horizontal Mill came from a school that was closing down the metal work classes due
to the cost of health and safety and lack of funds.
So shoot me down for my views if you find them wrong, but give reasons that may change my viewpoint.
Adrian
For high volume, low cost mass produced products you are correct. However the countries you mention (china and india) are generally not so interested
in premium goods. Or even vehicles other than those sold within their own countries. People know goods made in these countries are generally poor
quality, yet still buy them.
People love to cite the uk car industry as it was a big employer in terms of numbers, the reason it folded was lack of investment coupled with a lack
of willingness to update and change. Germany still remains competitive in the world car market but has higher labour rates than the UK - they were
able to offer a more competitive product of higher quality than the UK because they didn't sit back, resist change and made major investment to
keep up with the Japanese. Which is exactly what we didnt do.
What killed UK mass manufacturing in the first place was a combination of several factors, some political, but mostly the structure of the industry at
the time. Some of this still exists (high power unions etc) whilst more is changing.
Where I work there is continual investment in new machine tools and technology (its one of the things I am responsible for) - however you would still
be suprised how much resistance there is to change from the old ways. Thankfully over the last 10 years this has become less of a problem as people
see things change for the better. We aren't a big manufacturing company (employing around 300 people) but we are continually improving and
remaining competitive in the market place. We offer a niche product to a global market - most of which is export, to the US, Europe and the East.
There is something deep self destructive urge in the UK to seem to want everything to fail. And guess what? Eventually it does if you let it. I try
through my job to keep at least our small company competitive in a global marketplace and take every opportunity to promote engineering in the UK. Its
a growing business, embrace and ecourage it.
quote:
Originally posted by flak monkey
For high volume, low cost mass produced products you are correct. However the countries you mention (china and india) are generally not so interested in premium goods. Or even vehicles other than those sold within their own countries. People know goods made in these countries are generally poor quality, yet still buy them.