Record Power join the Made in Britain organisation
- Thread starter Sachakins
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Sachakins
The most wasted of days is one without woodwork
Yep, but it may a bit of British beef being whacked in it......
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
UK services sector accounts for ~75% of economic output and jobs. Manufacturing is ~17%. Construction is most of the balance.
UK jobs in the current manufacturing sector are likely to be high skilled. Unless we are prepared to work on similar pay and conditions to those in China, India etc, the job opportunities for less advanced skills will be limited.
Turning back the clock to create manufacturing jobs for lesser skills by, for instance, building tariff barriers would simply diminish the standard/quality of living for most.
We are the architects of change - we surf the internet to find the best value deal which meets our need usually based on price. For those who trained in traditional apprenticeships 40 years ago - the world has changed and skills now required are very different.
Manufacturing may come back to the UK. But it will take full advantage of the automated low labour input machinery now used. It will not create lots of new jobs - only those who can deliver the high level of skill needed to operate them.
It will be good for the economy (reduce imports. possibly increase exports), and allow manufacturers to be more responsive to demand rather than cope with remote contracts and long lead times.
UK jobs in the current manufacturing sector are likely to be high skilled. Unless we are prepared to work on similar pay and conditions to those in China, India etc, the job opportunities for less advanced skills will be limited.
Turning back the clock to create manufacturing jobs for lesser skills by, for instance, building tariff barriers would simply diminish the standard/quality of living for most.
We are the architects of change - we surf the internet to find the best value deal which meets our need usually based on price. For those who trained in traditional apprenticeships 40 years ago - the world has changed and skills now required are very different.
Manufacturing may come back to the UK. But it will take full advantage of the automated low labour input machinery now used. It will not create lots of new jobs - only those who can deliver the high level of skill needed to operate them.
It will be good for the economy (reduce imports. possibly increase exports), and allow manufacturers to be more responsive to demand rather than cope with remote contracts and long lead times.
Sachakins
The most wasted of days is one without woodwork
Ìf it increases exports, decreases imports, the net result is increased GDP, decreased government borrowing, releases money for investments into sectors that will raise employment opportunities, thus increasing tax revenues, both direct and indirect, further reducing government borrowing, releasing monies further etc etc.
Thus theoretically is a consistent spiral, bringing the national debt down, thus reducing interests payments further fueling government borrowing down to zero.
So bringing work back into UK manufacturing will in itself not directly raise employment initially, but by using automated production techniques will keep the labour cost down, allowing products to be competitively priced against imports, thus enabling the growth as outlined above.
All it needs is the will and the nerve by government and manufacturers to kick-start it, and fully support it during its infancy.
It's not rocket science after all that's needed, it's nerve, government stability, incentives for medium to long term gains and disincentives for short-term capitalisation of cash.
JimmyStartrite
Established Member
Its too late to stop corporate inertia with any changes to the capitalist system (which is good and bad) or expect any governments to do anything about it while they have a pocketful of greasy envelopes when it comes to cheap imports and outsourced manufacturing,
The countries main GDP is mortgages, which in itself is a paradox, high finance has made everything complicated, before someone pulled some iron out the ground, sent it off to be made into steel, that got sent somewhere to be made into produce and it ended up in a shop, we saw the money going round, whole towns and cities were built around it, now we export someone elses labour, hoard the profits and dodge tax while canary wharf makes a killing speculating, which is the real deficit in England, not government spending!
The only thing you can do is vote with your wallet, buy british, shop locally make purchases with longevity, when marketing people do focus groups ,think tanks and market research they will follow the trend and supply will meet demand.
The countries main GDP is mortgages, which in itself is a paradox, high finance has made everything complicated, before someone pulled some iron out the ground, sent it off to be made into steel, that got sent somewhere to be made into produce and it ended up in a shop, we saw the money going round, whole towns and cities were built around it, now we export someone elses labour, hoard the profits and dodge tax while canary wharf makes a killing speculating, which is the real deficit in England, not government spending!
The only thing you can do is vote with your wallet, buy british, shop locally make purchases with longevity, when marketing people do focus groups ,think tanks and market research they will follow the trend and supply will meet demand.
I agree, "**** in a wok?" usually that would get corrected to "peach in a wok"That is amazing!
The fundamental problem is consumerism. People fundamentally look at the price more than the quality or where it was manufactured. There is nothing inherently wrong with that as people want to have stuff and not everyone has the same income.
These schemes have value in making people aware of the origins of what they buy and can encourage a discussion of the widerimpacts of globalisation and consumerism. That is positive.
I don’t expect MIB to have a measurable impact on U.K. manufacturing but it might at least raise awareness and help one or two niche artisans keep their skills and business alive. That in turn might encourage people like us to learn some of those skills to keep them alive.
The simple truth is that it has always been like this. The hay days of the British industrial revolution was all about our manufacturing being cheaper than the manual processes in other countries. For sure those processes initially also drove a consistency in quality. As other countries caught up with industrialisation we no longer won on quality so the race to the bottom to reduce cost, at the expense of quality, began. The final step in that, after substituting poor materials, was replacing the work force with cheaper people and today, even in places like China, we see those people replaced by machines.
There is no clear answer or silver bullet in any of this. It’s only going to progress more in the future as manufacturing evolves to the point of multi purpose automated manufacturing systems. Turning the clock back just doesn’t work, baring some massive disaster, so we need to be looking towards the future and finding out what people can do to be productive rather than looking back with rose tinted glasses at a time when it was us sticking it to the world rather than someone else out performing us. The current soft spot for employment is the financial sector and hospitality as they are somewhat self generating but it is human nature to try to find a way to exploit things so I’m sure at some point those too will become outsourced (holographic holiday anyone?) at some point in the future.
A final point is that China is getting expensive now. I’ve had a team in China for the last fifteen years, admittedly all degree/doctorate qualified, and staff cost have increased very significantly over the years. When we started cost were 1/10 those in the US but today it is less than ½. An interesting factor is also to look at costs between US and U.K. That ratio has changed significantly too. U.K. is now only slightly higher than the US for highly qualified staff. U.K. was two or three times more expensive 10 years ago.
These schemes have value in making people aware of the origins of what they buy and can encourage a discussion of the widerimpacts of globalisation and consumerism. That is positive.
I don’t expect MIB to have a measurable impact on U.K. manufacturing but it might at least raise awareness and help one or two niche artisans keep their skills and business alive. That in turn might encourage people like us to learn some of those skills to keep them alive.
The simple truth is that it has always been like this. The hay days of the British industrial revolution was all about our manufacturing being cheaper than the manual processes in other countries. For sure those processes initially also drove a consistency in quality. As other countries caught up with industrialisation we no longer won on quality so the race to the bottom to reduce cost, at the expense of quality, began. The final step in that, after substituting poor materials, was replacing the work force with cheaper people and today, even in places like China, we see those people replaced by machines.
There is no clear answer or silver bullet in any of this. It’s only going to progress more in the future as manufacturing evolves to the point of multi purpose automated manufacturing systems. Turning the clock back just doesn’t work, baring some massive disaster, so we need to be looking towards the future and finding out what people can do to be productive rather than looking back with rose tinted glasses at a time when it was us sticking it to the world rather than someone else out performing us. The current soft spot for employment is the financial sector and hospitality as they are somewhat self generating but it is human nature to try to find a way to exploit things so I’m sure at some point those too will become outsourced (holographic holiday anyone?) at some point in the future.
A final point is that China is getting expensive now. I’ve had a team in China for the last fifteen years, admittedly all degree/doctorate qualified, and staff cost have increased very significantly over the years. When we started cost were 1/10 those in the US but today it is less than ½. An interesting factor is also to look at costs between US and U.K. That ratio has changed significantly too. U.K. is now only slightly higher than the US for highly qualified staff. U.K. was two or three times more expensive 10 years ago.
niemeyjt
Established Member
I did this - a British manufactured impact socket set. It looked like it was made from scrap bits out of the parts bins and bore little resemblance to what was advertised on the web site. Zero customer service from supplier or manufacturer to my complaints. I would have got better from various Chinese importers.
So beware price and UK manufacture does not mean quality.
