CBI Forecast 36,000 Job Loses In Manufacturing Sector
As if the market needed any more bad news, the latest CBI survey includes a forecast that 36,000 jobs will be lost in the manufacturing industry over the rest of 2008. The survey shows that confidence in the sector has taken a major hit with costs rising dramatically and sales falling off the edge of a cliff.
As forecasts for the future fall to a 5 year low, there is a feeling that a recession may just be around the corner, and the concern that this pessimistic talk will actually talk the economy into a recession. Cost pressures in the sector are of a magnitude not seen since the 1980s when the UK manufacturing sector was affectively wiped out for a decade. How and when the sector will pick up remains to be seen but with a growing wave of negative news to come in the months ahead the situation looks like getting much worse before if gets better.
The move in the manufacturing sector has further highlighted the fact that the UK is predominantly a services based economy after major changes in the 1980s. Whether the manufacturing sector will ever return to past glories is very unlikely, but hope springs eternal.
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