Stephen Houghton
North Staffordshire’s manufactur-ing base could lose hard-earned skills forever amid fears of a further slowdown in the sector.
That was the view today of Allan Bourne, joint managing director of Trentham-based Biltmore Garments, after he closed the fac-tory last week due to increased red tape and foreign competition.
The move, which claimed the jobs of 125 people, came as warn-ings grew of a fresh crisis in the manufacturing sector.
Mr Bourne, aged 66, explained many people no longer valued manufacturing as a credible or worthwhile career.
He said: ‘For the last few years we haven’t been able to attract young people into the industry.
For some reason they don’t want to come into manufacturing.
‘They are quietly told that if they don’t get on with their stud-ies, this is where they will end up.
‘Everybody has this attitude now. When I was taught at school, I was taught the country had to be self-reliant in manufacturing.
‘We had girls at the factory with 20 or 30 years’ experience, who were always retraining because of changing styles.
‘That is now lost. They will never come back, and will be too old to train others in a few years.’
Mr Bourne added it was ‘sad’ that North Staffordshire and the rest of the country appeared to be depending on the service sector for wealth.
His own company at Newstead Industrial Estate, which mainly supplied the retail chain Next, had suffered from price competi-tion from overseas.
North Staffordshire’s economy is predicted to lose a quarter of its 68,000-strong industrial work-force in the decade to 2010, partly due to cheap labour in the Far East and Eastern Europe.
These would be on top of thousands of jobs already lost from coal mining, steel-making, textiles, ceramics and engineering.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is this week set to add to the gloom surrounding the sector by revealing more firms than expected will cut jobs in the first half of the year as foreign competitors make further in-roads into the British market.
Its quarterly regional health check of UK manufacturing, due to be published tomorrow, will point to a sharp downturn in con-fidence and orders.
References and further reading
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154 Chapter 4 · Human resource management and the labour market
Case study continued
CBI West Midlands assistant regional director Gil Murray told Sentinel Sunday that the situation was caused by ‘underlying factors’
rather than the Iraq war.
Mr Murray pointed to poor trading conditions, as well as a lack of labour market ‘flexibility’
caused by legislation from the European Union.
He said: ‘We have not detected any of the optimism that the Chancellor has been talking about recently.’
Source: The Sentinel (Stoke) 5 May 2003.
Questions
1 What type of labour market/employment system do you think used to be dominant in the North Staffordshire region?
2 The CBI regional director claims that European legislation is causing a lack of labour flexibility.
Discuss what kind of flexibility he has in mind and how far it would help Biltmore Garments.
3 Debate whether it would be possible for firms such as Biltmore Garments to adopt a ‘high road’
approach to competing in world markets.
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For multiple choice questions, exercises and annotated weblinks specific to this chapter visit this book’s website at www.booksites.net/beardwell