The UK manufacturing industry is calling for a national skills task force as the sector braces for potential redundancies.
The rate of decline in manufacturing orders has accelerated and pessimism on a return to normal trading within the next year has grown, according to a survey from Make UK.
In response, the industry body is calling for the establishment of a task force which would have the objective of retaining key skills within industry by re-deploying employees who have lost their jobs to other companies and enabling them to be re-trained.
A smaller such scheme was set up after the financial crisis in 2008 but Make UK believes there is now a case to establish a much bigger scale project on a national basis.
Commenting, Make UK chief executive, Stephen Phipson, said: “There is no disguising the fact these figures make for awful reading with the impact on jobs and livelihoods across the UK. Industry and government must now leave no stone unturned to retain as many key skills as possible within the sector to ensure it is in a position to effectively recover when growth eventually returns, which at some point it will.
“As part of this government should establish a national skills task force with the aim of retaining and re-deploying as much talent within the sector as possible. This will help ensure that companies have the necessary skills and capacity to be quick out of the blocks for any upturn in demand.
“In addition, the Job Retention Scheme has been very effective in allowing employers to retain as many of their staff as possible. But, industry accepts that it cannot continue indefinitely and will understand the plans to reduce the cost to the taxpayer and ask companies to make a greater contribution. In doing so, however, the chancellor should provide as much clarity and certainty for companies as possible whilst, at the same time, introducing an element of real flexibility into the scheme which allows for part time work.”
According to the latest Covid-19 Manufacturing Monitor published by Make UK, the number of companies now operating in some capacity continues to grow, standing at just under 95%. However, despite this a quarter of companies plan to make redundancies in the next six months with a further 45% possibly planning to do so. At this stage, just under a third of companies (30%) do not plan to make redundancies.
Of those who plan to make redundancies, over a third of companies (33.3%) plan to make up to 10% of employees redundant, just under a third (31.1%) up to a quarter of employees, whilst more than a quarter (28.9%) plan to make up to half their staff redundant.
Make UK also warned that the rate of decline in orders has increased compared to the last survey two weeks ago. The number of companies reporting order declines of more than half up from just under a quarter to just under a third (31.8%) while those reporting declines of up to half also increased from just under a quarter to just over (27.1%).
Furthermore, the number of companies who believe it will take more than a year to return to normal trading conditions has also grown slightly from the last survey, up to just under four fifths (37.8%) from 36% two weeks ago. The extent to which pessimism amongst companies has grown is highlighted by the fact the figure for the same question stood at just 17% of companies a month ago.
Make UK www.makeuk.org