Are we in a bubble?

[sime42]

This is turning out to be another varied and interesting thread. Arbtalk at its best.

Speaking from bitter personal experience over the last twelve months I can say that the UK automotive engineering industry is pretty much screwed at the moment unfortunately. A combination of Brexit and then the Covid-19 fiasco. It was also struggling a bit before all this, as a result of the dirty diesel engines scandal a couple years back. My experience is primarily with JLR, Jaguar Landrover, but as tbey are sadly now one of the few remaining large car manufacturers in Britain i think its fairly indicative of the whole. There's program pauses or cancellations, job cuts and production volume reductions all over the place.

The consensus is that it should only be a short-term dip, but the problem is no-one knows how long tbat short-term will last, it could be six months or six years. All the major car companies are now scrabbling to switch to electric power as quickly as possible. JLR have stated that they will electrify all their models by 2025 i think. Thats a massive amount of potential work. The worry is that much of the engineering and design work will be done abroad, global economics. India are now a major player in this. Long-term prospects for the automotive industry in Britain have not looked good for years now, its been in decline over the course of my lifetime at least.

[Khriss]

@agg221  i meant the whole apprentice engineer skills shortage in UK, happening since 70,s  i passed Royal Ordnance apprentice exams at Barnbow after leaving school then had change of heart n went into Forestry, that factory closed 2006 so the idea we hold on to or develope skilled personell in UK is anathema to most of the Govs we end up with here. Buying  it in or subbing it out is second best strategy or worse . K

[agg221]

11 minutes ago, Khriss said:

@agg221  i meant the whole apprentice engineer skills shortage in UK, happening since 70,s  i passed Royal Ordnance apprentice exams at Barnbow after leaving school then had change of heart n went into Forestry, that factory closed 2006 so the idea we hold on to or develope skilled personell in UK is anathema to most of the Govs we end up with here. Buying  it in or subbing it out is second best strategy or worse . K

We have really messed it up on several occasions.

 

I just about remember the 1970s as a bleak time for manufacturing (Dad worked for Ford in Dagenham as a metallurgist so I kind of absorbed it). Instead of modernising, it felt like a fight by the unions to cling on to jobs that weren't really viable and the entrenched 'them and us' culture took any sense of quality out of a lot of production. Vauxhall Viva or Austin Allegro anyone...? It was right through the supply chain too, so even if you tried to build something decent, the raw materials such as the steel, were so poor you couldn't control the quality of your product.

 

By the 1980s we pretty much axed the old-style apprentice system and decided everyone should go down the further education route with polytechnics but in breaking the unions we also made manufacturing and engineering second-class, poorly paid jobs so a lot of people with skills went to the US which paid well (the brain drain).

 

Two things which have changed for the better since are that engineering is now fairly well paid, and the modern apprenticeship does work sometimes, for both parties. It makes further education cost-effective and the employer gets a person who is tied to the company and trained to meet their specific needs. It is, however, quite expensive for the employer - you pay the person for 5 days a week but you only get 4 days a week delivered (5th day is education) and that lasts a large number of years if someone goes all the way through to degree level.

 

The reality is though that engineering requires you to be good at maths and ideally physical sciences too. Those are subjects which many people are not good at and, much like healthcare workers, you really don't want people who are bad at the job, or not interested. Trying to make the STEM subjects appealing is not easy and you can't force people. We (my employer) used to do well out of the EU - countries with glass ceilings for women were great for us as the UK doesn't really have one, so we used to get a lot of the brightest, most motivated female graduates. Going forward, we either shrink, reduce quality or subcontract overseas but the latter does not work for a lot of the work we do. Not really sure how that will pan out - when the opportunities are there but you can't get the staff. It does mean that the better employers will probably do well and the poorer employers will lose out, which is an interesting shift in the balance of power between employers and employees. As I said in my first comment - engineering is in a rather odd situation.

 

Alec

[Khriss]

My neighbours are astonished at what i do-  one actually got a bloke in to put up a shelf.... He makes more money than me. A Lot More Money..  How can UK even produce stuff without basic skills taught across the board. K

[sime42]

My neighbours are astonished at what i do-  one actually got a bloke in to put up a shelf.... He makes more money than me. A Lot More Money..  How can UK even produce stuff without basic skills taught across the board. K

Yep, a lot of people these days are simply not at a practical. What a shocking state of affairs.

[breffni]

23 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

@Mark Bolam
 

Reminds me of a story.

 

My mum used to bake Irish bread for us, it’s unleaven so a bit sort of primitive but nice anyway.

So down the lane there were a couple of hipster (it was the late 80s so that didn’t exist but you get the idea) poofs who owned and ran a kennel for Great Danes got to hear about it and asked her if they could have some of it ‘happy to pay’

For a number of years one of them used to turn up every few days to collect and pay the 50p or whatever, if we didn’t have the change for a quid he’d get a bit anxious, I don’t know if he thought us Oirish with no self control would lose our minds with all that extra money and descend into drunkenness but we had to find it anyway.

Pissed ourselves laughing about them regularly.

Mum never worked up the courage to tell them she couldn’t be arsed. 
They moved away in the end.

Soda bread? 

[Mick Dempsey]

Yes, the name eluded me for a while.