Fixing a Broken System: Can Sir Keir Starmer’s Jobs Push Revive a Deindustrialised UK?
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was reported to have said that he had inherited a country that “isn't working”, and that the Labour government would drive changes that would tackle the biggest drivers of unemployment and inactivity. Upon further reading of the BBC article “Starmer says UK ‘isn’t working as he announces jobs push” (Reference BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqxwv3n87g4o) revealed that he wasn’t announcing nor planning to tackle the apparent Trade Union led inefficiencies and generous “workers’ rights” that have been very much a part of the destruction of UK industry and manufacturing; rather he believes that he has the answers to tackle the issue on “economic inactivity” among 16-to 24-year-olds. Good luck Sir Kier! Let’s hope that the electorate holds you to that. I suspect however that 16-to-24-year-olds aren’t the only, nor the main reason, that “the UK isn’t working”.
If Sir Kier’s plan is to get these (mostly unskilled) “economically inactivate 16-to-24-year-olds” active into manufacturing industries, then that is indeed a challenging prospect; especially when considering the BBC follow-up article “I want to get a job but I don't know how” (Work and benefits: ‘I want to get a job but I don't know how') that references the very “target audience” of Sir Kier’s plans. A question back to the UK prime minister is: what jobs does he expect these (mostly) unskilled people to get given the significant decline of UK industry and manufacturing since the 1980s?
I’d also direct readers to the 2014 paper by Michael Kitson and Jonathan Michie, Reference: THE DEINDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: THE RISE AND FALL OF UK MANUFACTURING, 1870-2010(Reference:https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cbrwp459.pdf)
The quote in this paper’s abstract is most pertinent “We argue that in the case of the UK, the relative decline of manufacturing has indeed reflected deep-rooted structural problems. In particular there has been a chronic failure to invest in manufacturing, with the UK economy and investment being instead skewed towards short-term returns and the interests of the ‘City’.”
Taking a wider look at the UK landscape, The BBC has kindly charted this for us (Reference Deindustrialisation in the UK – How the UK economy is changing in the 21st century – OCR – GCSE Geography Revision – OCR – BBC Bitesize) in reference to the “Deindustrialisation” in the UK.
The BBC defines “Tertiary” as providing services that include retail, tourism, education, health, and banking; and “Quaternary” as the section of employment that is knowledge-based, e.g. ICT and research. Of these definitions, Sir Kier’s target group of mostly unskilled 16-to-24-year-olds are best to focus on retail, tourism and manual work that supports the above referenced Tertiary and Quaternary industries.
The main fly in that ointment is that for the most, such employment is at, or just above, the minimum wage. Often such work is based in places with high living costs and restrictive access to both accommodation and childcare. In many of the major cities, such work is already heavily subscribed by student labour, or migrants willing to do the work whilst being accepting of the restrictions associated with living conditions in such places.
To put that into perspective:
As a Graduate Engineer with 5 years of working experience prior to arriving in South-East London in 1997, my “UK entry job” as a Process Engineer paid me £14 per hour. At that wage, living in Greater London was somewhat of a challenge that meant I had to live in shared accommodation in a part of London that was grim enough to be affordable, but not so grim as to be “unliveable”. The other option would have been to reside outside of the M25 and thus live with the daily commute (in time and relatively high cost of this commute) into or across London (that so many do). At the end of each month of my time living in Greater London, I would find that a substantial amount of my wages was spent on accommodation and commuting costs. I would expect that many readers currently needing of a London Travelcard will feel my pain!
In my experience, I didn’t have much growth in the bank balance once living costs were paid; so much so that after 18 months I made the decision to move from London and seek work in the North of England where living costs were significantly lower. I found that I wasn’t “living” in London, rather I was barely surviving.
Sadly, many of those manufacturing, engineering and industrial jobs are no longer there, and many UK industries are no longer with us; or are barely hanging on. To save others the research, IBISWorld has done an analysis of those UK industries in decline (Reference The 10 Fastest Declining Industries in the UK – 2024 | IBISWorld) as well as the 10 biggest industries (The 10 Biggest Industries by Revenue in the UK – 2024 | IBISWorld) by revenue.
It is significant that the “Oil and Gas” industry isn’t on either list and that “Decommissioning” the very Offshore Oil and Gas assets hasn’t been the employment hub that it was once hoped that it would be by those choosing to ignore the circa £20 billion + (and climbing) costs of removing same assets from the UKCS (Reference: The terrifying cost of scrapping the world’s ageing oil and gas rigs – Geographical).
The decline of UK industry and manufacturing has had a direct impact on those places that many of us Engineers would have once worked, especially in relation to work locations outside of high-cost living areas. Implementation of IR35 has added further pressure in that the expenses once allowed within tax relief for commuting to places, not one’s primary residence (and residing there for the working week) are no longer allowed. As such, in many cases “working away” has no financial driver – unless that “away” means away from the UK. That is precisely the step I took when I returned to Consulting after a longish period in the UK as a “staffie”.
Given my experience as an Engineer doesn’t include retail, tourism, education, health, and/or banking, then for the most, I live outside of a major city and returned to an industry with one of the last-standing manufacturing bases that still values technical excellence – Pharmaceuticals. It would be a curious question to Sir Kier as to whether this is the target for those aforementioned “economically inactive” 16-to-24-year-olds. I can’t speak for the pharmaceuticals industry, but I’d expect that on balance it would be willing. The bigger question is whether 16-to-24-year-olds would take up the challenge and the opportunity? Sadly, I suspect not.
