With the news of job losses at manufacturing plants of companies such as Nissan, Honda, Land Rover and Ford, trade union Unite has called for assistance from the government to avert a repeat of the economic impact felt at the collapse of MG Rover in 2005.
According to research released today by the University of Birmingham, The Work Foundation and Birmingham Business School, a study sample of the 6,300 people who lost their jobs as a result of the closure of MG Rover’s Longbridge plant, 90 per cent have since found work but two thirds have suffered wage falls, of an average if £5,640 per year in real terms.
As was one of the biggest crises to hit British manufacturing in recent years, Unite says lessons need to be learnt. Commenting, joint general secretary of Unite, Tony Woodley said;
“As recession grips the UK we need our leaders to take swift and significant steps to protect our remaining manufacturing jobs. Our government must do all in its power to ensure the mistakes of Rover are not repeated. We urge it to make every possible use of its stake in the banks and its power to leverage in financial to support our manufacturing sector through these tough times – otherwise we will have no industrial base from which to revive our economy.”
The survey published in ‘Life After Longbridge’: Three Years on. Pathways to Re-Employment in a Restructuring Economy’, sampled 204 former Rover workers of the West Midlands based plant and found 60 per cent have left the manufacturing sector to gain employment within the service industry.
David Bailey, Director of Birmingham Business School, and a co-author of the report, said:
“The collapse of Rover is rightly termed historic because it marked the closure of the last volume carmaker in the UK…. It needs to be borne in mind just how calamitous the sudden arrival of very large numbers of skilled, umemployed people could have been for the region.”
