|
Post by Paul Spencer on Jan 17, 2023 16:45:06 GMT
You're not supposed to take his example l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y. He's simply demonstrating that there are plenty of other jobs out there, with better pay and conditions, that health workers can migrate to. So it was a shit example then. If you think it is, who am l to argue? Personally, I thought it was patently obvious.
|
|
|
Post by foghornsgleghorn on Jan 17, 2023 17:51:26 GMT
You're not supposed to take his example l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y. He's simply demonstrating that there are plenty of other jobs out there, with better pay and conditions, that health workers can migrate to. So it was a shit example then. Maybe it is not the best example , but you really need to get more in touch with the transferrable skills of the UK workforce. It's not the 1970's any more.... People continue to leave the NHS to come and make microchips at my current employer where the wages have improved in comparison. The former mental health nurse who started in the New Year has got off to a flying start in wet etch processing and I can only imagine our gain is the NHS's loss. If it's happening there I don't see any reason why the same could not happen at JCB.
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 17, 2023 23:22:19 GMT
The UK’s austerity push adds insult to injury caused by Brexit, which plunged the country into a prolonged period of uncertainty and delayed automotive investment. During the 12 months leading up to the 2016 referendum, Britain produced nearly 1.7 million cars. In the past year, automakers have produced less than half that. “We are witnessing a slow-motion car crash of the UK auto industry,” said David Bailey, a business economics professor at the University of Birmingham. “Britain used to have an industrial strategy, but now the government seems to be standing on the sidelines.” The UK’s struggle to modernize its auto industry threatens thousands of industrial jobs as the transformation redraws the map of where cars are manufactured. BMW last month said it will move production of electric Mini hatchbacks from Oxford, England, to China. Honda closed its car factory in Swindon last year, leaving Britain with just four mass manufacturers: JLR, Nissan, BMW and Toyota. The UK used to boast the world’s second-biggest auto manufacturing base in the 1950s. It’s since dropped to 18th place, behind rivals including Canada and Slovakia. But but but Mr Coke told us above the UK Auto Industry is doing swimmingly Isn't David Bailey (The Prof you quote above, not the Photographer) from Mr Coke's Alma Mater which he likes to name drop occasionally The problem today and into the future is you need Batteries to Power the Electric Vehicles I may be wrong but the only UK Company "Potentially" due to Manufacture EV Batteries which Bozo trumpeted a few months ago Britishvolt is on its last legs and barely survived going into Administration but the Swiss Investor Glencore advanced £5M which the Company say will last about 5/6 weeks while the staff are on half pay Nissan do have a small Battery Operation to supply their Leaf Model in UK www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/27/britishvolt-scraps-plan-for-second-factory-in-canadaPretty much as predicted Britishvolt the ONLY UK EV Giga Battery Startup entered Administration Today The poster child of Boris for the UKs great Brave New Future after Brexit is no more www.reuters.com/technology/battery-startup-britishvolt-applies-appoint-administrators-2023-01-17/Given that it takes 5 years from Commissioning to full production for a new Giga Battery Factory this pretty much sounds the death knell of any future Automobile Manufacturing in UK if UK keeps to its 2030 commitments The essential problem outside the EU the UK Domestic Car Market is just not big enough without the possibility of also exporting to EU to justify the investment in Giga EV Battery Factories Meanwhile don't worry you avid UK motorists Europe is pushing ahead to challenge China in the manufacture of Batteries for EVs so there will be Vehicles available, just none manufactured in UK www.greencarcongress.com/2022/03/20220312-benchmark.html
|
|
|
Post by bayernoatcake on Jan 20, 2023 9:03:37 GMT
Oh…..what…..a……shock
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 21, 2023 23:59:04 GMT
|
|
|
Post by oggyoggy on Jan 22, 2023 18:40:49 GMT
|
|
|
Post by toppercorner on Jan 23, 2023 21:12:28 GMT
perhaps sunak is actually onto something with compulsory maths until the age of 18, or perhaps Zahawi filled in the forms?
either way, a bit of a fuck up.
|
|
|
Post by bigjohnritchie on Jan 23, 2023 21:34:26 GMT
perhaps sunak is actually onto something with compulsory maths until the age of 18, or perhaps Zahawi filled in the forms? either way, a bit of a fuck up. Perhaps we are not as " good" as Germany and Japan , irrespective of Brexit. Perhaps Germany has a more pragmatic , forward looking government, not locked into an outdated class war. Perhaps Germany has more quickly come to terms with its horrific history in the 1930s and 40s than we have with our colonialism. Perhaps we will always be " failures" if the comparison and expectation is thst we should be the best country in the world.
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 23, 2023 21:56:00 GMT
perhaps sunak is actually onto something with compulsory maths until the age of 18, or perhaps Zahawi filled in the forms? either way, a bit of a fuck up. This is very "careless" So the only nonsense that Bozo, Jacob Rich-Snob and their fellow travellers could come up to justify Brexit was the Vaccine Rollout (which was in any case done while UK were in EU) which according to them allowed UK to Exit and Recover quickest in G7 was total Bollocks ... Quelle Suprise
|
|
|
Post by oggyoggy on Jan 24, 2023 16:09:52 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mrcoke on Jan 24, 2023 17:21:25 GMT
The British steel industry, where to start? To cut to two main issues: 1. The steel industry is a massive energy consumer, consuming millions of tonnes of metallurgical coal in coke ovens and blast furnaces, and huge quantities of gas and electricity in its rolling mills, the costs of which have gone through the roof in 2021. Even at the best of times steel makes little profit so they must be haemorrhaging money these days. 2. The British steel industry has never received even adequate investment let alone proper investment to modernise and make the industry even half efficient. The industry was a political football after WW2 being nationalised and privatised (partially) twice. A major investment in the late 50s/early 60s* was split for social needs by the Macmillan government between Llanwern, Wales, and Ravenscaig, Scotland, to create two inefficient works, both of which closed in the 90s /2001. * it takes a decade to develop a steelworks from concept to fully worked up to capacity. The Finniston plan to radically restructure the nationalised industry in the 70s was butchered for social reasons by Labour's Lord Beswick who's plan retained some inefficient works that eventually closed anyway. Then Thatcher "arrived" with Ian MacGregor appointed to rationalise the industry and prepare it for privatisation. The industry never received a truly structured investment. Certainly British private enterprise has never been interested in investing in steel neither have successive governments. The industry was at its peak in terms of employment and capacity in the early 70s, then the UK joined the EEC, and it has declined ever since. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-steel-decades-of-decline/After further closures, privatisation in 1987 and further closures, notably Ravenscraig, British Steel merged with the Dutch Koninklijke Hoogovens.to form Corus in 1999. Then Llanwern ceased steelmaking in 2001. Corus was taken over by Tata in 2007, India''s biggest foreign takeover. Tata decided to sell off parts they did not want; it used to be called asset stripping. Teesside was sold to Thia SSI in 2011 but went bankrupt in 2015. Scunthorpe was sold to Greybull Capital in 2016 for a £1 and resurrected the British Steel name. Some minor rolling mill works were sold to Liberty House. Tata retained steelmaking at Port Talbot in the UK and IJmuiden in the Netherlands. Greybull was set up by two French brothers, the Meyohases, and sought finance for Scunthorpe from the government, but the official stance was that would have been unlawful under EU state aid rules. Greybull went into insolvency in 2019 having received £50m in loan interest and £9m in management fees; it promised to invest £400m but only actually put in £20m during each of its three years of ownership. Somebody should have told the brothers this is the UK not France; they obviously thought the British government would just roll over and hand over the money they wanted. They also presided over the Monarch Airlines collapse, leaving 110,000 travellers stranded. Each time a major steel works is closed there are many thousands of jobs lost at the works and in the supply chain. But the British public and politicians are hardened to it. It took Business Minister Anna Soubry just two weeks to decide to shut Teesside steelworks when SSI walked away rather than try and find a buyer; a works that took over 15 years to develop. The Chinese Jingye Group bought Scunthorpe steelworks out of liquidation in 2019; they promised to inject £1.2billion but have actually invested £156m since acquiring the business. They are now seeking £300m "investment" from British tax payers to keep the works going, while Europe and China churn out excess steel the world doesn't want/need at this time. The huge Teesside site is currently being demolished and new plant installed for wind power manufacturing facilities, hydrogen technology, and the free port, etc. The demise of steel in this country due to energy inflation following the war in Ukraine is almost complete. I'm not sure what this post has to do with Brexit other than two thirds of the industry's decline has been during membership of the EEC/EU. Last year in 2021, Tata Steel Europe was split into a British and Dutch branches, so the reader is left to imagine what is next. I expect Tata will be asking the relevant governments for funding. At the end of the day the British investors and governments have not been prepared to put their money or tax payers money into the steel industry unlike European governments who have taken joint ownership of their industries. The only people who have taken the risks have been the Indians, Thai, and Chinese and all ended up hugely out of pocket. Production of steel is the most energy-consuming and CO2 emitting industrial activity in the world. Steel requires about 20 gigajoules of energy per ton produced. Three quarters of the energy comes from consuming metallurgical coal. On average, 1.83 tons of CO2 is emitted for every ton of steel produced making steel production a major contributor to global warming adding over 3.3 million tons annually to global emissions. Steel production requires large inputs of coke which is extremely damaging to the environment. Coke ovens emit air pollution that are highly toxic and can cause cancer. Waste water from the coking process is also highly toxic and contains a number of carcinogenic organic compounds as well as cyanide, sulphides, ammonium and ammonia. Investors and politicians don't want to be associated with polluting processes and prefer to pass the parcel and focus on something else more acceptable to society. Having read all that I expect a lot of Oatcake readers would think they are right! China now dominates world steelmaking, producing virtually half the world's steel and almost 10 times more than the next largest producers India and Japan. All of China's plant is younger than the whole of Europe and North America's plant and far more efficient and less polluting. European governments have started to address that but the amounts of capital they plan to spend are eye watering. For example, steel-maker ArcelorMittal is to invest 1.7 billion Euros in reducing carbon emissions at two of its plants in France, with financial support from the French state. In Germany, under the "Steel Action Concept", €5 billion is being invested. In Italy, ArcelorMittal Italia (to be renamed Acciaierie d’Italia) has made a commitment with Invitalia, an Italian state-owned company, forming a public-private partnership between the parties, and planning to inject over a billion Euros into the industry. Time will tell how wise all this is. The third major steel issue created by China's dominance of world steel production is that, apart from Europe's general over capacity of steelmaking, if there is a dip in the world demand then Chinese state-subsidised firms flood the global market with cheap product. This is countered by some countries adopting quotas for steel imports. The UK is proposing to replace its remaining few** blast furnaces with electric arc steelmaking but that will only be economically viable when sufficient renewable energy is available which I would not expect to be achieved till 2040 and after all the planned nuclear power plants are up and running. ** 5, Middlesbrough had over 100 at the start of the last century! There are four electric arc furnaces in the UK, which make products from recycled steel; three of these sites are in Sheffield and one in Cardiff. But they are relatively small output, expensive to operate, cannot use iron ore like the blast furnace route, and are only economic for producing high value steel products like stainless steels, etc. They are not economically viable for producing steel for construction, cars, white goods, rails, tubes, etc. One of the reasons investors are reluctant to invest in steel manufacture, apart from the huge amount of capital required and the extremely long payback (30+ years?), is the risk that steel is replaced by alternative materials over such a long period. A number of materials are constantly being proposed as steel alternatives for different applications such as aluminium, fibre reinforced polymers, other polymers, composites, and plastics, alloys of aluminium and nickel, and natural materials like hemp and bamboo. The main advantage steel has it is uniquely flexible, relatively cheap, and 100% recyclable, but if environmental control measures make it more expensive and difficult to produce the door is opened to alternative materials. Consequently committing to investing £billions today with a payback running into decades could be foolhardy if the world moves away from steel. With modern inventions like graphene and 3D printing who knows what is next? UK Car Production The UK car industry has been on a somewhat different path but in the end finished up in a similar place being all foreign owned and under invested, certainly when it comes to battery power. No British investors want to know, the payback is far too long, and governments do not see it appropriate to tax people and spend it on manufacturing. We get the government we vote for, which may be unsatisfactory but IMO better than being in the EU and having government we haven't voted for. In my last quarterly report I said UK vehicle manufacturing declined in September and manufacturers are struggling with high input costs particularly energy. I repeat this as I believe I was misquoted by some posters, who claim that I posted otherwise. My last quarterly report provoked a response about the decline in UK car manufacturing since 2017, and a quotation from David Bailey, a business economics professor at the University of Birmingham (my old alma mater): “Britain used to have an industrial strategy, but now the government seems to be standing on the sidelines.” Well sorry Mr Bailey but I spent over 40 years in industry from 1960s and I don't remember any government having an industrial strategy apart from Mrs Thatcher's policies of subsidising foreign companies to build factories, many of whom promptly left when the subsidies stopped, and privatising industry. I once attended a seminar with the Labour government's business consultants who stated that Blair and Brown had virtually no interest in supporting industry, which they expected to fend for itself. So government standing on the sidelines is nothing new to me and is evidenced by the overall decline in UK manufacturing since the second world war. Apart from a brief spell shortly after the UK joined the EEC that did not last very long, the decline resumed with the 1980 steel strike followed by the 1984 miners' strike and the destruction of whole swathes of UK manufacturing by the Thatcher government. To return to car production, the UK automotive industry has done much better than most of the rest of UK industry, increasing car production to a peak in 2016, just shy of its previous peak in late 1990s. That compares well with the rest of industry, which between 1960 and 2015 experienced a decline in manufacturing employment of more than 0.4 per cent per year over those 55 years. Most of that time the UK was in the EEC/EU which gave us very little benefit in manufacturing, in fact just the opposite, we all know of British manufacturers that moved to the continent during EEC/EU membership. New car registrations in the UK fell last year to their lowest level in three decades. I believe there are numerous reasons why people are not buying cars such as inflation, reduced spending power, a lot of people used there cars far less during the pandemic and are choosing to keep them longer, etc. There have also been pandemic impacts leading to shortages and there is still a shortage of microprocessors, which some expect will last "until 2024 or later". The shortage of new cars has pushed the price up of second hand cars which are now 67% more expensive than before the pandemic hit in 2020, with prices rising by 21% a year. Many people would not want to change their car when it is retaining or increasing its value and they are using it less. Consequently there is little incentive to invest in the car production industry or as we have seen recently components like batteries. Academics and politicians may complain but how many of them are investing their money in car manufacturing companies? The UK car production industry has actually performed better than the French industry which has declined by two thirds since the 00s and also slumped due to the pandemic. Italy's car production has declined 30% since 2017 and German car production has declined by half since 2016. The whole of the world's car production has struggled since the pandemic due to shortages most notably microchips. It is also a fact of life that many European manufacturers with high wages and high energy costs will struggle to compete with far eastern manufacturers, which begs the question again: is it wise to spend billions of Euros on steelmaking? It would be a brave person who would invest in the car industry and quite surprising that Nissan have continued to invest in the UK.
|
|
|
Post by oggyoggy on Jan 24, 2023 19:03:55 GMT
|
|
|
Post by smallthorner on Jan 24, 2023 19:50:24 GMT
Very good question... Perhaps someone could explain to a thicko like me what they are?
|
|
|
Post by bayernoatcake on Jan 24, 2023 20:18:05 GMT
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 24, 2023 21:03:33 GMT
The British steel industry, where to start? To cut to two main issues: 1. The steel industry is a massive energy consumer, consuming millions of tonnes of metallurgical coal in coke ovens and blast furnaces, and huge quantities of gas and electricity in its rolling mills, the costs of which have gone through the roof in 2021. Even at the best of times steel makes little profit so they must be haemorrhaging money these days. 2. The British steel industry has never received even adequate investment let alone proper investment to modernise and make the industry even half efficient. The industry was a political football after WW2 being nationalised and privatised (partially) twice. A major investment in the late 50s/early 60s* was split for social needs by the Macmillan government between Llanwern, Wales, and Ravenscaig, Scotland, to create two inefficient works, both of which closed in the 90s /2001. * it takes a decade to develop a steelworks from concept to fully worked up to capacity. The Finniston plan to radically restructure the nationalised industry in the 70s was butchered for social reasons by Labour's Lord Beswick who's plan retained some inefficient works that eventually closed anyway. Then Thatcher "arrived" with Ian MacGregor appointed to rationalise the industry and prepare it for privatisation. The industry never received a truly structured investment. Certainly British private enterprise has never been interested in investing in steel neither have successive governments. The industry was at its peak in terms of employment and capacity in the early 70s, then the UK joined the EEC, and it has declined ever since. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-steel-decades-of-decline/After further closures, privatisation in 1987 and further closures, notably Ravenscraig, British Steel merged with the Dutch Koninklijke Hoogovens.to form Corus in 1999. Then Llanwern ceased steelmaking in 2001. Corus was taken over by Tata in 2007, India''s biggest foreign takeover. Tata decided to sell off parts they did not want; it used to be called asset stripping. Teesside was sold to Thia SSI in 2011 but went bankrupt in 2015. Scunthorpe was sold to Greybull Capital in 2016 for a £1 and resurrected the British Steel name. Some minor rolling mill works were sold to Liberty House. Tata retained steelmaking at Port Talbot in the UK and IJmuiden in the Netherlands. Greybull was set up by two French brothers, the Meyohases, and sought finance for Scunthorpe from the government, but the official stance was that would have been unlawful under EU state aid rules. Greybull went into insolvency in 2019 having received £50m in loan interest and £9m in management fees; it promised to invest £400m but only actually put in £20m during each of its three years of ownership. Somebody should have told the brothers this is the UK not France; they obviously thought the British government would just roll over and hand over the money they wanted. They also presided over the Monarch Airlines collapse, leaving 110,000 travellers stranded. Each time a major steel works is closed there are many thousands of jobs lost at the works and in the supply chain. But the British public and politicians are hardened to it. It took Business Minister Anna Soubry just two weeks to decide to shut Teesside steelworks when SSI walked away rather than try and find a buyer; a works that took over 15 years to develop. The Chinese Jingye Group bought Scunthorpe steelworks out of liquidation in 2019; they promised to inject £1.2billion but have actually invested £156m since acquiring the business. They are now seeking £300m "investment" from British tax payers to keep the works going, while Europe and China churn out excess steel the world doesn't want/need at this time. The huge Teesside site is currently being demolished and new plant installed for wind power manufacturing facilities, hydrogen technology, and the free port, etc. The demise of steel in this country due to energy inflation following the war in Ukraine is almost complete. I'm not sure what this post has to do with Brexit other than two thirds of the industry's decline has been during membership of the EEC/EU. Last year in 2021, Tata Steel Europe was split into a British and Dutch branches, so the reader is left to imagine what is next. I expect Tata will be asking the relevant governments for funding. At the end of the day the British investors and governments have not been prepared to put their money or tax payers money into the steel industry unlike European governments who have taken joint ownership of their industries. The only people who have taken the risks have been the Indians, Thai, and Chinese and all ended up hugely out of pocket. Production of steel is the most energy-consuming and CO2 emitting industrial activity in the world. Steel requires about 20 gigajoules of energy per ton produced. Three quarters of the energy comes from consuming metallurgical coal. On average, 1.83 tons of CO2 is emitted for every ton of steel produced making steel production a major contributor to global warming adding over 3.3 million tons annually to global emissions. Steel production requires large inputs of coke which is extremely damaging to the environment. Coke ovens emit air pollution that are highly toxic and can cause cancer. Waste water from the coking process is also highly toxic and contains a number of carcinogenic organic compounds as well as cyanide, sulphides, ammonium and ammonia. Investors and politicians don't want to be associated with polluting processes and prefer to pass the parcel and focus on something else more acceptable to society. Having read all that I expect a lot of Oatcake readers would think they are right! China now dominates world steelmaking, producing virtually half the world's steel and almost 10 times more than the next largest producers India and Japan. All of China's plant is younger than the whole of Europe and North America's plant and far more efficient and less polluting. European governments have started to address that but the amounts of capital they plan to spend are eye watering. For example, steel-maker ArcelorMittal is to invest 1.7 billion Euros in reducing carbon emissions at two of its plants in France, with financial support from the French state. In Germany, under the "Steel Action Concept", €5 billion is being invested. In Italy, ArcelorMittal Italia (to be renamed Acciaierie d’Italia) has made a commitment with Invitalia, an Italian state-owned company, forming a public-private partnership between the parties, and planning to inject over a billion Euros into the industry. Time will tell how wise all this is. The third major steel issue created by China's dominance of world steel production is that, apart from Europe's general over capacity of steelmaking, if there is a dip in the world demand then Chinese state-subsidised firms flood the global market with cheap product. This is countered by some countries adopting quotas for steel imports. The UK is proposing to replace its remaining few** blast furnaces with electric arc steelmaking but that will only be economically viable when sufficient renewable energy is available which I would not expect to be achieved till 2040 and after all the planned nuclear power plants are up and running. ** 5, Middlesbrough had over 100 at the start of the last century! There are four electric arc furnaces in the UK, which make products from recycled steel; three of these sites are in Sheffield and one in Cardiff. But they are relatively small output, expensive to operate, cannot use iron ore like the blast furnace route, and are only economic for producing high value steel products like stainless steels, etc. They are not economically viable for producing steel for construction, cars, white goods, rails, tubes, etc. One of the reasons investors are reluctant to invest in steel manufacture, apart from the huge amount of capital required and the extremely long payback (30+ years?), is the risk that steel is replaced by alternative materials over such a long period. A number of materials are constantly being proposed as steel alternatives for different applications such as aluminium, fibre reinforced polymers, other polymers, composites, and plastics, alloys of aluminium and nickel, and natural materials like hemp and bamboo. The main advantage steel has it is uniquely flexible, relatively cheap, and 100% recyclable, but if environmental control measures make it more expensive and difficult to produce the door is opened to alternative materials. Consequently committing to investing £billions today with a payback running into decades could be foolhardy if the world moves away from steel. With modern inventions like graphene and 3D printing who knows what is next? UK Car Production The UK car industry has been on a somewhat different path but in the end finished up in a similar place being all foreign owned and under invested, certainly when it comes to battery power. No British investors want to know, the payback is far too long, and governments do not see it appropriate to tax people and spend it on manufacturing. We get the government we vote for, which may be unsatisfactory but IMO better than being in the EU and having government we haven't voted for. In my last quarterly report I said UK vehicle manufacturing declined in September and manufacturers are struggling with high input costs particularly energy. I repeat this as I believe I was misquoted by some posters, who claim that I posted otherwise. My last quarterly report provoked a response about the decline in UK car manufacturing since 2017, and a quotation from David Bailey, a business economics professor at the University of Birmingham (my old alma mater): “Britain used to have an industrial strategy, but now the government seems to be standing on the sidelines.” Well sorry Mr Bailey but I spent over 40 years in industry from 1960s and I don't remember any government having an industrial strategy apart from Mrs Thatcher's policies of subsidising foreign companies to build factories, many of whom promptly left when the subsidies stopped, and privatising industry. I once attended a seminar with the Labour government's business consultants who stated that Blair and Brown had virtually no interest in supporting industry, which they expected to fend for itself. So government standing on the sidelines is nothing new to me and is evidenced by the overall decline in UK manufacturing since the second world war. Apart from a brief spell shortly after the UK joined the EEC that did not last very long, the decline resumed with the 1980 steel strike followed by the 1984 miners' strike and the destruction of whole swathes of UK manufacturing by the Thatcher government. To return to car production, the UK automotive industry has done much better than most of the rest of UK industry, increasing car production to a peak in 2016, just shy of its previous peak in late 1990s. That compares well with the rest of industry, which between 1960 and 2015 experienced a decline in manufacturing employment of more than 0.4 per cent per year over those 55 years. Most of that time the UK was in the EEC/EU which gave us very little benefit in manufacturing, in fact just the opposite, we all know of British manufacturers that moved to the continent during EEC/EU membership. New car registrations in the UK fell last year to their lowest level in three decades. I believe there are numerous reasons why people are not buying cars such as inflation, reduced spending power, a lot of people used there cars far less during the pandemic and are choosing to keep them longer, etc. There have also been pandemic impacts leading to shortages and there is still a shortage of microprocessors, which some expect will last "until 2024 or later". The shortage of new cars has pushed the price up of second hand cars which are now 67% more expensive than before the pandemic hit in 2020, with prices rising by 21% a year. Many people would not want to change their car when it is retaining or increasing its value and they are using it less. Consequently there is little incentive to invest in the car production industry or as we have seen recently components like batteries. Academics and politicians may complain but how many of them are investing their money in car manufacturing companies? The UK car production industry has actually performed better than the French industry which has declined by two thirds since the 00s and also slumped due to the pandemic. Italy's car production has declined 30% since 2017 and German car production has declined by half since 2016. The whole of the world's car production has struggled since the pandemic due to shortages most notably microchips. It is also a fact of life that many European manufacturers with high wages and high energy costs will struggle to compete with far eastern manufacturers, which begs the question again: is it wise to spend billions of Euros on steelmaking? It would be a brave person who would invest in the car industry and quite surprising that Nissan have continued to invest in the UK. Thanks for that Mr Coke you have laid out a catalogue of Private and Government of all hues Mismanagement, Under Investment, Poor Forward Planing and finally abdication of responsibility to Foreign Investors at least partially funded by Hundreds of Millions of £s of Taxpayers Money. It has been a slow drip drip for the UK Steel and Car Industry and is on in my opinion irreversibly on its way to Extinction These industries employ about 200K people Directly and possibly 1M Indirectly never mid the Millions of people their purchasing power supports in the wider Economy The purpose of my original post is to contrast the more Strategic Approach under the EU Umbrella and support Companies across Europe are working together for their common good. I'm not going to quote from the Article from the Inovator if you have read it it is self evident. An example being the French Bssed Company GraviTY (no crocodile) is on track to produce €100B in Green Hydrogen by 2025, not too shabby. This has been possible by partnering with other Companies in Europe and combining expertise The EU is prepared to take on China and understands they have a better chance collectively Part of the strategy is to create innovative hubs around Universities and fast track ideas from prototype to manufacturing I'm quite sure although the Article doesn't say, it will be linked into the €95.5B Horizon EU Research and Innovation Project The same collaborative approach was taken in EU for Giga Factories for EV Batteries and expect to be self sufficient by 2025 and 35 Giga Factories are under currently under construction Meanwhile the much trumpeted BritishVolt collapsed into Administration last week for all too familiar reasons Lack of Investment and a proper Business Plan Personally I wouldn't be holding my breath on the Teesside Development, we shall see. To conclude collaboration works UKs decision to go it alone is a tragic mistake but not out of character in decision making over the last 50+ years.
|
|
|
Post by foghornsgleghorn on Jan 24, 2023 22:06:29 GMT
Probably behind a paywall ,but more concerns that the UK is being left behind in investing in green technology as the EU pushes subsidies to counter the US. In the last two years the UK has lost £4.3 billion potential (by 2030) value in hydrogen and battery production www.ft.com/content/35d2b521-f0fc-4cd4-8fc6-81bfa144755b
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 25, 2023 1:28:44 GMT
Probably behind a paywall ,but more concerns that the UK is being left behind in investing in green technology as the EU pushes subsidies to counter the US. In the last two years the UK has lost £4.3 billion potential (by 2030) value in hydrogen and battery production www.ft.com/content/35d2b521-f0fc-4cd4-8fc6-81bfa144755bIt's a hell of a lot more money than that as I've being saying to Mr Coke in my last two posts I doubt he will ever agree, but what price "Sovereignty" eh
|
|
|
Post by mrcoke on Jan 25, 2023 14:09:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 25, 2023 16:41:00 GMT
I was reminded of your post when I saw this: www.buildersmerchantsnews.co.uk/Lords-reports-record-performance-for-2022/55244#:~:text=The%20Group%20has%20delivered%20a,ahead%20of%20current%20market%20expectations. I am in favour of companies making profits and British workers getting higher pay. Shame there were places in the EU not getting as much pay increase as British workers. What a very strange example to use on this thread A Buildings Merchant Company who operate in the South East of England Whats it got to do with Brexit?
Of course everyone is happy for Lords and any workers that are being well paid. Obviously it's not Universal as we wouldn't be having an avalanche of StrikesThere were a million people protesting in Paris last week because Macron is proposing to raise the pension age. www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/19/france-hit-by-nationwide-strikes-over-macron-pension-plansI'm sure for Balance you just forgot to add that the protest was due to a proposal to raise Pension age from current 62 to 64. Quite different to UK currently 66 rising to 68
Anyone that understands the French Psyche knows that they value their life work balance very highly and is a Country much more Socially based than UK
|
|
|
Post by oggyoggy on Jan 25, 2023 16:43:33 GMT
No comments on costs here far outstripping similar costs in the EU? The rest has nothing to do with brexit.
|
|
|
Post by foster on Jan 25, 2023 17:19:24 GMT
No comments on costs here far outstripping similar costs in the EU? The rest has nothing to do with brexit. Pension age at 64 (or 62). We should be so lucky. 67 for me, and I don't expect to live that long.
|
|
|
Post by mrcoke on Jan 25, 2023 18:02:24 GMT
I was reminded of your post when I saw this: www.buildersmerchantsnews.co.uk/Lords-reports-record-performance-for-2022/55244#:~:text=The%20Group%20has%20delivered%20a,ahead%20of%20current%20market%20expectations. I am in favour of companies making profits and British workers getting higher pay. Shame there were places in the EU not getting as much pay increase as British workers. What a very strange example to use on this thread A Buildings Merchant Company who operate in the South East of England Whats it got to do with Brexit?
Of course everyone is happy for Lords and any workers that are being well paid. Obviously it's not Universal as we wouldn't be having an avalanche of StrikesThere were a million people protesting in Paris last week because Macron is proposing to raise the pension age. www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/19/france-hit-by-nationwide-strikes-over-macron-pension-plansI'm sure for Balance you just forgot to add that the protest was due to a proposal to raise Pension age from current 62 to 64. Quite different to UK currently 66 rising to 68
Anyone that understands the French Psyche knows that they value their life work balance very highly and is a Country much more Socially based than UK
My point was answering the claim that Brexit was damaging the construction industry and inflated building materials cost. The reality is until the recent hikes in interest rates, UK construction has been booming, as evidenced by builders profits, and prices are being inflated by demand and energy costs, which have received less subsidy in the UK than many EU countries. When was the last time we were building so many houses? Wasn't a vote for Brexit in 2016 going to cause a collapse in house prices? Remember project fear: www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/eu-referendum-george-osborne-house-prices-brexitHaving worked for the French for 7 years and had a boss in Paris, I am familiar with the French psyche. I regularly got cheesed off by strikers when trying to travel, and their clock-watchers who had to stop work on the button. I am also sympathetic with Macron's problems of national debt, budget deficit, and huge potential costs replacing/repairing all their nuclear power stations. So I expect there will be a lot more strikes in France France's strike record is quite staggering they certainly value their life work balance: www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/19/industrial-action-in-france-and-the-uk-which-countries-have-the-most-strikes-in-europeIt is life work balance and the change in attitude to many UK over 50s since the pandemic lockdowns that has contributed to the UK 's slower recovery from the pandemic, not Brexit as those opposed to Brexit suppose. Many 100,000s of over 50s have chosen not to return to the rat race and forego second and third holidays or new car, rather than work themselves to an early grave.
|
|
|
Post by foghornsgleghorn on Jan 25, 2023 20:05:24 GMT
Today's FT front page had this (probably paywalled) under the headline 'Eurostar boss says peak trains are left a third empty because of post-Brexit passport delays':
http//www.ft.com/content/6c0fe235-b815-4fff-9e7d-e103cf43ba2a
|
|
|
Post by foghornsgleghorn on Jan 25, 2023 20:14:14 GMT
It is life work balance and the change in attitude to many UK over 50s since the pandemic lockdowns that has contributed to the UK 's slower recovery from the pandemic, not Brexit as those opposed to Brexit suppose. Many 100,000s of over 50s have chosen not to return to the rat race and forego second and third holidays or new car, rather than work themselves to an early grave. On 26th November 2022 in your post "Brexit 2nd Year 3rd Quarter progress to date (26.11.2022)" you go to some length to show that labour shortages are an issue across the EU. So if the labour shortages are Europe-wide ,why are you now saying the labour shortages in the UK are the reason for our slower recovery from the pandemic?
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 25, 2023 20:44:03 GMT
My point was answering the claim that Brexit was damaging the construction industry and inflated building materials cost. The reality is until the recent hikes in interest rates, UK construction has been booming, as evidenced by builders profits, and prices are being inflated by demand and energy costs, which have received less subsidy in the UK than many EU countries. When was the last time we were building so many houses? Wasn't a vote for Brexit in 2016 going to cause a collapse in house prices? Remember project fear: www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/eu-referendum-george-osborne-house-prices-brexitHaving worked for the French for 7 years and had a boss in Paris, I am familiar with the French psyche. I regularly got cheesed off by strikers when trying to travel, and their clock-watchers who had to stop work on the button. I am also sympathetic with Macron's problems of national debt, budget deficit, and huge potential costs replacing/repairing all their nuclear power stations. So I expect there will be a lot more strikes in France France's strike record is quite staggering they certainly value their life work balance: www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/19/industrial-action-in-france-and-the-uk-which-countries-have-the-most-strikes-in-europeIt is life work balance and the change in attitude to many UK over 50s since the pandemic lockdowns that has contributed to the UK 's slower recovery from the pandemic, not Brexit as those opposed to Brexit suppose. Many 100,000s of over 50s have chosen not to return to the rat race and forego second and third holidays or new car, rather than work themselves to an early grave. Surprisingly the Construction Industry themselves don't share your view Why are building materials prices so high?The cost of building materials has soared since the start of 2021 (The Date Bexit Began), following on from the impact of the pandemic and the UK officially leaving the EU, leading to materials shortages and problems shipping materials into the UK. www.homebuilding.co.uk/news/construction-materials-shortage
I would steer clear of pointing out Brexit predictions that didn't come to pass. I'm not going to comment on the catalogue of those, others may not be so charitable I was aware you worked for a French Company which was why I was surprised you thought it unusual they would protest to protect their Pension Age at 62. You chose not to comment on the UK retirement of 66 but gave a discourse on why many in UK chose early retirement Yet failed to make the link that the two might be connected At least Macron has Neuclear Plants to replace or more realistically refurbish It's very generous of you to be sympathetic towards Macron who has a similar Debt/GDP Ratio to UK but fortunately for him French Gilt Rates are 25% below UKs, reflecting the confidence in the Markets I suppose towards the respective Economies You must be even more sympathetic towards poor Jeremy as last Month saw both the biggest monthly Public Sector Borrowing £27.4B since records began in 1993 as well as the largest monthly Interest payment £17.3B This pushed the Deficit for the year to over £100B www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/december2022
|
|
|
Post by mrcoke on Jan 25, 2023 21:44:26 GMT
My point was answering the claim that Brexit was damaging the construction industry and inflated building materials cost. The reality is until the recent hikes in interest rates, UK construction has been booming, as evidenced by builders profits, and prices are being inflated by demand and energy costs, which have received less subsidy in the UK than many EU countries. When was the last time we were building so many houses? Wasn't a vote for Brexit in 2016 going to cause a collapse in house prices? Remember project fear: www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/eu-referendum-george-osborne-house-prices-brexitHaving worked for the French for 7 years and had a boss in Paris, I am familiar with the French psyche. I regularly got cheesed off by strikers when trying to travel, and their clock-watchers who had to stop work on the button. I am also sympathetic with Macron's problems of national debt, budget deficit, and huge potential costs replacing/repairing all their nuclear power stations. So I expect there will be a lot more strikes in France France's strike record is quite staggering they certainly value their life work balance: www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/19/industrial-action-in-france-and-the-uk-which-countries-have-the-most-strikes-in-europeIt is life work balance and the change in attitude to many UK over 50s since the pandemic lockdowns that has contributed to the UK 's slower recovery from the pandemic, not Brexit as those opposed to Brexit suppose. Many 100,000s of over 50s have chosen not to return to the rat race and forego second and third holidays or new car, rather than work themselves to an early grave. Surprisingly the Construction Industry themselves don't share your view Why are building materials prices so high?The cost of building materials has soared since the start of 2021 (The Date Bexit Began), following on from the impact of the pandemic and the UK officially leaving the EU, leading to materials shortages and problems shipping materials into the UK. www.homebuilding.co.uk/news/construction-materials-shortage
I would steer clear of pointing out Brexit predictions that didn't come to pass. I'm not going to comment on the catalogue of those, others may not be so charitable I was aware you worked for a French Company which was why I was surprised you thought it unusual they would protest to protect their Pension Age at 62. You chose not to comment on the UK retirement of 66 but gave a discourse on why many in UK chose early retirement Yet failed to make the link that the two might be connected At least Macron has Neuclear Plants to replace or more realistically refurbish It's very generous of you to be sympathetic towards Macron who has a similar Debt/GDP Ratio to UK but fortunately for him French Gilt Rates are 25% below UKs, reflecting the confidence in the Markets I suppose towards the respective Economies You must be even more sympathetic towards poor Jeremy as last Month saw both the biggest monthly Public Sector Borrowing £27.4B since records began in 1993 as well as the largest monthly Interest payment £17.3B This pushed the Deficit for the year to over £100B www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/december2022 www.statista.com/statistics/1297100/material-shortage-in-the-construction-industry-in-germany-by-type/#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20both%20segments%2C%20at,rising%20construction%20costs%20in%20Germany. So when did Germany leave the EU? There a worldwide shortage of building materials. As I keep posting ad nauseum all the problems the UK are suffering are being suffered by other developed countries and worse in some cases. I will no doubt be demonstrating yet again in my next Brexit review. I will be responding to the post on labour shortage above in due course, but in most cases (GDP, inflation, food inflation, unemployment, etc.) the UK is performing better than some other G7 countries. It is noticeable that generally non EU countries in the G7 are perfing better than EU countries. Did I say I was surprised at the French protesting? I was saying the opposite I thought. Thank God we haven't got scores of aging nuclear power stations to refurbish or replace. I think we do need a few to cover base demand, but nuclear power stations require huge quantities of concrete and steel are are therefore not environmentally friendly. I thought the French budget deficit was much larger, not "similar". Whatever, I think you have ably explained why the government are so reluctant to endorse large wage rises.
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 25, 2023 23:17:55 GMT
Surprisingly the Construction Industry themselves don't share your view Why are building materials prices so high?The cost of building materials has soared since the start of 2021 (The Date Bexit Began), following on from the impact of the pandemic and the UK officially leaving the EU, leading to materials shortages and problems shipping materials into the UK. www.homebuilding.co.uk/news/construction-materials-shortage
I would steer clear of pointing out Brexit predictions that didn't come to pass. I'm not going to comment on the catalogue of those, others may not be so charitable I was aware you worked for a French Company which was why I was surprised you thought it unusual they would protest to protect their Pension Age at 62. You chose not to comment on the UK retirement of 66 but gave a discourse on why many in UK chose early retirement Yet failed to make the link that the two might be connected At least Macron has Neuclear Plants to replace or more realistically refurbish It's very generous of you to be sympathetic towards Macron who has a similar Debt/GDP Ratio to UK but fortunately for him French Gilt Rates are 25% below UKs, reflecting the confidence in the Markets I suppose towards the respective Economies You must be even more sympathetic towards poor Jeremy as last Month saw both the biggest monthly Public Sector Borrowing £27.4B since records began in 1993 as well as the largest monthly Interest payment £17.3B This pushed the Deficit for the year to over £100B www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/december2022 www.statista.com/statistics/1297100/material-shortage-in-the-construction-industry-in-germany-by-type/#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20both%20segments%2C%20at,rising%20construction%20costs%20in%20Germany. So when did Germany leave the EU? There a worldwide shortage of building materials. As I keep posting ad nauseum all the problems the UK are suffering are being suffered by other developed countries and worse in some cases. I will no doubt be demonstrating yet again in my next Brexit review. I will be responding to the post on labour shortage above in due course, but in most cases (GDP, inflation, food inflation, unemployment, etc.) the UK is performing better than some other G7 countries. It is noticeable that generally non EU countries in the G7 are perfing better than EU countries. Did I say I was surprised at the French protesting? I was saying the opposite I thought. Thank God we haven't got scores of aging nuclear power stations to refurbish or replace. I think we do need a few to cover base demand, but nuclear power stations require huge quantities of concrete and steel are are therefore not environmentally friendly. I thought the French budget deficit was much larger, not "similar". Whatever, I think you have ably explained why the government are so reluctant to endorse large wage rises. You are extremely adroit at answering a different question than the one asked and then throwing in a bit of irrelevant whataboutery I linked an Article from the Construction Industry which cited their problems which as well as coming back from Covid was the Price and difficulty of getting materials since Brexit due to import red tape and inflation I'm not even going to go there on the other distractions Your happy UK doesn't have the French Neuclear Reactors. A strange position considering French Electricity Consumers saw a 4% increase in their Energy Bills while their UK counterparts more than 100% The recent refurbishments of France’s Neuclear Power Plants extended their operating lifespan by up to 60 years Plus there is a Pipeline to build 14 more to make France Carbon Neutral by 2050 They already get 70% of Energy from Neuclear versus 15% in UK www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macronThis Article traces the history of how France, the largest net supplier of Neuclear Energy in the World, came to be integral to UKs Energy needs www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/07/britain-came-depend-french-energy/But not to worry UK is also going to have a new Neuclear Power Plant at Sizewell C - Built and owned by the French France's Budget Deficit for 2022 is expected to be about 6.5% of GDP UKs 7.2% obviously subject to finalisation
|
|
|
Post by oggyoggy on Jan 26, 2023 7:55:57 GMT
www.statista.com/statistics/1297100/material-shortage-in-the-construction-industry-in-germany-by-type/#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20both%20segments%2C%20at,rising%20construction%20costs%20in%20Germany. So when did Germany leave the EU? There a worldwide shortage of building materials. As I keep posting ad nauseum all the problems the UK are suffering are being suffered by other developed countries and worse in some cases. I will no doubt be demonstrating yet again in my next Brexit review. I will be responding to the post on labour shortage above in due course, but in most cases (GDP, inflation, food inflation, unemployment, etc.) the UK is performing better than some other G7 countries. It is noticeable that generally non EU countries in the G7 are perfing better than EU countries. Did I say I was surprised at the French protesting? I was saying the opposite I thought. Thank God we haven't got scores of aging nuclear power stations to refurbish or replace. I think we do need a few to cover base demand, but nuclear power stations require huge quantities of concrete and steel are are therefore not environmentally friendly. I thought the French budget deficit was much larger, not "similar". Whatever, I think you have ably explained why the government are so reluctant to endorse large wage rises. You are extremely adroit at answering a different question than the one asked and then throwing in a bit of irrelevant whataboutery I linked an Article from the Construction Industry which cited their problems which as well as coming back from Covid was the Price and difficulty of getting materials since Brexit due to import red tape and inflation I'm not even going to go there on the other distractions Your happy UK doesn't have the French Neuclear Reactors. A strange position considering French Electricity Consumers saw a 4% increase in their Energy Bills while their UK counterparts more than 100% The recent refurbishments of France’s Neuclear Power Plants extended their operating lifespan by up to 60 years Plus there is a Pipeline to build 14 more to make France Carbon Neutral by 2050 They already get 70% of Energy from Neuclear versus 15% in UK www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macronThis Article traces the history of how France, the largest net supplier of Neuclear Energy in the World, came to be integral to UKs Energy needs www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/07/britain-came-depend-french-energy/But not to worry UK is also going to have a new Neuclear Power Plant at Sizewell C - Built and owned by the French France's Budget Deficit for 2022 is expected to be about 6.5% of GDP UKs 7.2% obviously subject to finalisation Yes, but because our GDP is still higher than Bulgaria and energy prices have increased in Germany, Brexit is a resounding success
|
|
|
Post by mrcoke on Jan 26, 2023 23:29:36 GMT
It is life work balance and the change in attitude to many UK over 50s since the pandemic lockdowns that has contributed to the UK 's slower recovery from the pandemic, not Brexit as those opposed to Brexit suppose. Many 100,000s of over 50s have chosen not to return to the rat race and forego second and third holidays or new car, rather than work themselves to an early grave. On 26th November 2022 in your post "Brexit 2nd Year 3rd Quarter progress to date (26.11.2022)" you go to some length to show that labour shortages are an issue across the EU. So if the labour shortages are Europe-wide ,why are you now saying the labour shortages in the UK are the reason for our slower recovery from the pandemic? To answer your question: There is no question of whether there are labour shortages across the EU. In the EU more than 3% of all available jobs are vacant; more than ever since statistical records of this data started in 2006. This amounts to around six million jobs vacant across the EU. The EU’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.0% last July, the lowest figure since 2001. It follows there are far fewer people seeking work and far fewer likely to emigrate to the UK. In Germany more than half the country's companies are struggling to fill vacancies due to a lack of skilled workers, according to the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). The proportion of companies facing difficulties hiring was at its highest ever level, the DIHK found in its survey of 22,000 companies, with 53% reporting shortages. The Euro area labour market has been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic and associated containment measures, which is explained at length in the next link: www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-bulletin/articles/2021/html/ecb.ebart202008_02~bc749d90e7.en.htmlIt should be noted how the fall in unemployment stated in 2013. Labour shortages in the EU began long before the Brexit referendum. Turning to the UK labour shortage, there have been reports explaining the issues causing the problem and spelling out the reasons. The UK workforce is 400,000 smaller since the pandemic, only Italy in the G7 has seen a larger percentage drop in the workforce. As we all know Italy was severely hit by the pandemic as was the UK. A major cause is the very high level of long term sickness in the UK. Research has shown that inactivity among people over the age of 50 was the most important contributor to the decrease in the size of the workforce, with numbers much higher than what might have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends. A report by the Office for National Statistics stated last year " The fall in employment seen since 2016 have been largely driven by UK nationals". It is wrong to claim that there was a mass exodus of EU workers following the referendum. In the 12 months to September 2020, the number of EU workers increased by 119,000 workers when compared with the same period in 2016. There was an exodus following the pandemic due to lockdown and many returning to there homelands. As I have explained at length in another post, for those from Eastern Europe job opportunities are now far greater, so why return to the UK? uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/submission/office-for-national-statistics-written-evidence-to-the-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy-committees-inquiry-into-post-pandemic-growth-uk-labour-market/Regrettably there are those anti Brexit campaigners who wish to blame the problem of UK labour shortage on Brexit. A recent article by "UK In A Changing Europe" repeats the errors that were published by Nuffield Trust article on the shortage of doctors. The shortage of EU labour is based on the same fallacious premise that if Brexit/referendum had not resulted in the decision to leave the EU, that the inward net migration of EU citizens would have continued at the same pre-referendum rate. This is false because of firstly post pandemic effects, labour shortages in other EU countries such as Germany, and the improved economies and wages of East European states. There is no way with or without Brexit that migration to the UK would have continued at the same rate. There is no doubt that the UK lags behind some other countries on post-Covid employment recovery in terms of getting back to the same level of GDP in the last few weeks of 2019. This I contend is due to the long term under funding of the NHS, and the poor management of the pandemic at its outset resulting in the UK being far more seriously impacted than most developed countries. There are also structural reasons for the UK suffering more than other countries such as a large service industry sector, the high degree of commuting and international travel, etc. (In actual fact the rise in UK GDP since the depth of the pandemic in April 2020 has been larger than the rest of the G7 apart from the US. - but that is another issue.) The next link goes into more detail: obr.uk/box/the-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-labour-market-participation/I see the shortage of labour in the UK is a golden opportunity to address the major historical failing of the UK economy which is poor productivity. The UK has always lagged behind other leading nations in this respect. Employers have found it too easy to employ cheap labour due to higher levels of unemployment and a plentiful supply of cheap foreign labour, be it from the Commonwealth or the EU, rather than invest in automation, robotics, larger scale operations, etc. As a consequence British workers have been lower paid than many other developed countries. Thankfully even though we are only in the third year of Brexit, UK wage rates have started to improve at a higher rate than they did before Brexit. From the 2008 recession to the pandemic UK average weekly earnings growth was typically 2% to 4%. Thanks to Brexit, wages have been rising at circa 6%. tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/wage-growthA great number of UK companies are now realising they need to invest to improve productivity, which can only be good in the long term. Meanwhile the UK can continue to permit immigration from almost any country in the world on equal terms to fill jobs that need filling. My post above includes data from the following references: www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/labour-shortages-felt-all-over-europe/www.reuters.com/markets/europe/more-than-half-german-companies-report-labour-shortages-2023-01-12/www.eurofound.europa.eu/is/publications/report/2021/tackling-labour-shortages-in-eu-member-statesukandeu.ac.uk/the-impact-of-brexit-on-the-uk-labour-market-an-early-assessment/
|
|
|
Post by wannabee on Jan 27, 2023 2:27:59 GMT
On 26th November 2022 in your post "Brexit 2nd Year 3rd Quarter progress to date (26.11.2022)" you go to some length to show that labour shortages are an issue across the EU. So if the labour shortages are Europe-wide ,why are you now saying the labour shortages in the UK are the reason for our slower recovery from the pandemic? To answer your question: There is no question of whether there are labour shortages across the EU. In the EU more than 3% of all available jobs are vacant; more than ever since statistical records of this data started in 2006. This amounts to around six million jobs vacant across the EU. The EU’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.0% last July, the lowest figure since 2001. It follows there are far fewer people seeking work and far fewer likely to emigrate to the UK. In Germany more than half the country's companies are struggling to fill vacancies due to a lack of skilled workers, according to the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). The proportion of companies facing difficulties hiring was at its highest ever level, the DIHK found in its survey of 22,000 companies, with 53% reporting shortages. The Euro area labour market has been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic and associated containment measures, which is explained at length in the next link: www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-bulletin/articles/2021/html/ecb.ebart202008_02~bc749d90e7.en.htmlIt should be noted how the fall in unemployment stated in 2013. Labour shortages in the EU began long before the Brexit referendum. 1. Turning to the UK labour shortage, there have been reports explaining the issues causing the problem and spelling out the reasons. The UK workforce is 400,000 smaller since the pandemic, only Italy in the G7 has seen a larger percentage drop in the workforce. As we all know Italy was severely hit by the pandemic as was the UK. A major cause is the very high level of long term sickness in the UK. Research has shown that inactivity among people over the age of 50 was the most important contributor to the decrease in the size of the workforce, with numbers much higher than what might have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends. A report by the Office for National Statistics stated last year " The fall in employment seen since 2016 have been largely driven by UK nationals". It is wrong to claim that there was a mass exodus of EU workers following the referendum. In the 12 months to September 2020, the number of EU workers increased by 119,000 workers when compared with the same period in 2016. There was an exodus following the pandemic due to lockdown and many returning to there homelands. As I have explained at length in another post, for those from Eastern Europe job opportunities are now far greater, so why return to the UK? uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/submission/office-for-national-statistics-written-evidence-to-the-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy-committees-inquiry-into-post-pandemic-growth-uk-labour-market/2. Regrettably there are those anti Brexit campaigners who wish to blame the problem of UK labour shortage on Brexit. A recent article by "UK In A Changing Europe" repeats the errors that were published by Nuffield Trust article on the shortage of doctors. The shortage of EU labour is based on the same fallacious premise that if Brexit/referendum had not resulted in the decision to leave the EU, that the inward net migration of EU citizens would have continued at the same pre-referendum rate. This is false because of firstly post pandemic effects, labour shortages in other EU countries such as Germany, and the improved economies and wages of East European states. There is no way with or without Brexit that migration to the UK would have continued at the same rate. There is no doubt that the UK lags behind some other countries on post-Covid employment recovery in terms of getting back to the same level of GDP in the last few weeks of 2019. This I contend is due to the long term under funding of the NHS, and the poor management of the pandemic at its outset resulting in the UK being far more seriously impacted than most developed countries. There are also structural reasons for the UK suffering more than other countries such as a large service industry sector, the high degree of commuting and international travel, etc. (In actual fact the rise in UK GDP since the depth of the pandemic in April 2020 has been larger than the rest of the G7 apart from the US. - but that is another issue.) The next link goes into more detail: obr.uk/box/the-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-labour-market-participation/I see the shortage of labour in the UK is a golden opportunity to address the major historical failing of the UK economy which is poor productivity. The UK has always lagged behind other leading nations in this respect. Employers have found it too easy to employ cheap labour due to higher levels of unemployment and a plentiful supply of cheap foreign labour, be it from the Commonwealth or the EU, rather than invest in automation, robotics, larger scale operations, etc. As a consequence British workers have been lower paid than many other developed countries. Thankfully even though we are only in the third year of Brexit, UK wage rates have started to improve at a higher rate than they did before Brexit. From the 2008 recession to the pandemic UK average weekly earnings growth was typically 2% to 4%. Thanks to Brexit, wages have been rising at circa 6%. tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/wage-growthA great number of UK companies are now realising they need to invest to improve productivity, which can only be good in the long term. Meanwhile the UK can continue to permit immigration from almost any country in the world on equal terms to fill jobs that need filling. My post above includes data from the following references: www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/labour-shortages-felt-all-over-europe/www.reuters.com/markets/europe/more-than-half-german-companies-report-labour-shortages-2023-01-12/www.eurofound.europa.eu/is/publications/report/2021/tackling-labour-shortages-in-eu-member-statesukandeu.ac.uk/the-impact-of-brexit-on-the-uk-labour-market-an-early-assessment/You are regurgitating the same old nonsense in a different format that has already been debunked I'll address two points you've made the rest is just smoke and mirrors I. In a previous life you several times repeated the same boast uttered by Bozo that there were more people on UK "Payroll" as a Brexit Win. You are now reversing that lie to justify Labour Shortages 2. The Nuffield Trust Report identified two specific issues as a result of Brexit A) Recruitment took place to replace Nurses who heretofore had been trained to a high standard within EU Countries They had been replaced NUMERICALLY by Nurses from Third World Countries who had lower qualifications Your response and I'll paraphrase was better a half trained Nurse than none at all 2. The Nuffield Report went on to highlight a Chronic shortage of Specialist Doctors from EU which UK had traditionally relied upon including Heart, Lung, Anesthetics and Dentistry It has nothing to do with predictive Consultant Doctor numbers www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-costs-of-brexit-make-severe-challenges-even-harder-for-the-nhs-and-social-care
|
|