Recognising people power
17 March 2009
It is funny how many different angles we can find to analyse our current economic woes and conclude that we are, in fact, all doomed.
Last week in my column ‘Was that the week that was?’ I tried to outline how I believe that a positive approach by government could still allow the engineering sectors in the UK to grab victory from the jaws of defeat, in sporting parlance, and to turn the current downturn into a solid foundation for the future of UK industry.
To my way of thinking a heady mixture of idealism, common-sense and commitment can go a long way towards overturning the standard practice of negativity and over-caution that traditionally holds back our engineering sector. However, some of the practicalities of our current situation cannot be pushed to one side, not least of all because there seems to be little of the common-sense and commitment from the government that inspires confidence.
The practicality I am referring to is the erosion of the skill base in the UK. My comment last week was really concerned with the long term objective of stabilising the engineering industry and giving it the status of an aspirational job for the future. However, if the ‘long term’ is to be attractive to budding engineers, then we need to make sure the ‘short-term’ is in safe hands. More specifically, as pointed out in survey earlier this week, we need to protect the skills of the existing workforce before worrying too much about the future.
The survey was conducted by EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation that represents 6000 companies in manufacturing, technology and engineering. Its findings are that job losses in the manufacturing sector will be in the region of 140,000 this year. A horrific number in terms of the effects on individual lives and families of course, but there is also a consequence for the future. What happens to these people? Do they hang around and wait for the manufacturing industries to want them again? Or do they take their careers down different paths through retraining, relocation or simply making use of other skills?
Whatever happens, a good number of skilled individuals, including those involved in design functions, will be lost to the industry and many of these people are critical if British industry is to re-create itself when the economic climate improves.
Phil Carden, is operations director at the Antal International, a global recruitment firm. He commented: “In the short term the manufacturing industry doesn’t need as many skilled staff but in the long-term, if we don’t keep hold of these workers, we will have a major labour issue. When we come out of the economic downturn we will need skilled workers more than ever, but if UK companies don’t retain them they will either move to jobs overseas or re-train. Such a skills shortage in the future will mean that the industry will not recover as quickly and firms will have to spend a lot of time and money looking to recruit from outside the UK. Few firms expect things to get better in the near future but they should focus on keeping skilled workers on board so when the recovery does happen they will be in a good position to take advantage of the market.”
I fully agree with Phil Carden’s analysis – this really could be a major problem. Yet I would hope that in companies where electronic design is the core activity, there is recognition of the importance of people and when credit finally does flow back into industry then these companies will first of all secure their staff for the future.
I have heard mutterings recently about companies using the recession as an excuse to ‘clear out the deadwood’, but I do not believe this is true and the reason for that is that I don’t believe there is any significant amount of ‘deadwood’. Another survey this week (from Reed Electronic Research) indicated that the European electronics industry had shrunk in terms of value by 44% since its dot-com fuelled peak in 2000. An industry that shrinks by this amount has no deadwood. In this sort of environment companies that are not lean and mean will have already failed by now.
So in terms of the future, it seems imperative that both individual companies and the industry as a whole recognises what a core asset the workforce is and does its best to hold on to them.
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