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Unite for Jobs for vehicle manufacturing workers

More than 40 companies manufacture vehicles in the UK, ranging from global volume car makers, van, truck and bus builders, to specialist niche players.

The industry is supported by a dynamic supply chain including many of the world’s major component manufacturers, technology providers, design and engineering consultancies; and it benefits from a world-renowned knowledge base.

No other European country has anything like this range and number of automotive players.

The industry in the UK is characterised by significant foreign direct investment and high exports, equivalent to 13 percent of the UK’s exports of goods.

Overall, automotive manufacturing provides 180,000 jobs and contributes some £10.2 billion value-added to the UK economy (6.4 percent of the total for the whole UK manufacturing sector).

The companies based in the UK operate in Europe’s third biggest automotive market with UK customers in 2008 accounting for the purchase of more than 2.1 million new cars – equivalent to 14 percent of European vehicle registrations.

The UK automotive retail and service/ maintenance sector, which last year generated some £24 billion value added to the UK economy. It comprises some 67,000 businesses employing 552,000 people.

Jobs lost in the vehicle manufacturing sector
The BBC reported recently that it had recorded over 100,000 job losses in the sector world wide since the recession took hold.

The figures in the UK, based on Unite survey, since the end of September for the sector are:

• Motor vehicle: 8,932
• Motor Components: 6,800

This is a conservative estimate as it relies on reported losses in workplaces only where Unite members are employed. 

It would not be unreasonable to quote a figure overall for the period in question of approximately 20,000.

Jobs lost generally
There were 2.78 million employee jobs in manufacturing industries in the three months to January 2009, down 120,000 on a year earlier.

In the three months to January 2009, 266,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force.

Survey interviews, up 86,000 from the three months to October 2008 and up 154,000 from a year earlier.

The Unite recession report shows a breakdown across the sectors in Unite workplaces as follows:

 A similar table by region shows:

• Guarantees to unlock loans of up to £1.3bn European Investment Bank (EIB) guarantees for investment in lower carbon initiatives
• Loans or loan guarantees to support of up to £1bn of lending for lower carbon initiatives for non-EIB backed projects
• Increased funding for training of employees under ‘Train to Gain’
• This was in addition to the package announced earlier for SMEs, including automotive components, known as the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG)
• The Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) is a £1bn loan guarantee scheme delivered through banks and other lenders that will enable an additional £1.3bn of lending to business up to the end of March 2010
• The EFG scheme provides a 75% government guarantee on individual loans of up to £1m to viable businesses with an annual turnover of up to £25m
• The guarantee can be used to support new loans, refinance existing loans or to convert part or all of an existing overdraft into a loan to release capacity to meet working capital requirements.

Unite is calling for the following further action to defend manufacturing jobs:

• The urgent implementation of temporary short time working compensation scheme to save the jobs hundreds of thousands of skilled workers and sustain our manufacturing base in the immediate term.  A joint proposal from the TUC and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has provided costed proposals for a £1.2bn package of wage subsidies, which would save some 600,000 jobs. 
• Speedier access to credit from the banks, again to ensure immediate support for manufacturing businesses; 
• Extra government financing for the sector in keeping with the levels of assistance provided to manufacturers by our overseas competitors;
• Action to stimulate consumer demand, including a scrappage scheme coupled with improved access to finance for buyers; 
• A national strategy for jobs to ensure we have a clear road map out of this recession, to create secure, skilled work for the workers of today and tomorrow, and which places manufacturing support and manufacturing jobs at its heart.

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