I'm curious if this is just delaying the decline of hands-on engineering skill in the UK. We've historically been awful at incentivising people to take up skilled trades like metalwork - there are...
I'm curious if this is just delaying the decline of hands-on engineering skill in the UK.
We've historically been awful at incentivising people to take up skilled trades like metalwork - there are very few trade schools and very little school time dedicated to working on machines. Keeping the plant open for now is great, but I don't think there will be enough people with those skills in 15-20 years when the current workforce start retiring.
Anecdotally, one of my parents is retiring from a highly skilled metalworking job they've had for over 20 years, and while the work itself isn't going away the company doesn't have anyone able to step in full-time. They're training someone now, but because the pay is so much lower than being a design engineer, all the previous trainees bailed to pursue that instead.
In both salary and skill training, we don't value these people until they're about to disappear and then we panic and do something like this.
Hopefully this panic kickstarts some reform in the education/apprenticeship side.
Without incentive it's going to continue to be a decline. The manufacturing moved overseas because of cheaper costs to do so. As education levels rise, already being seen in many industries e.g....
I'm curious if this is just delaying the decline of hands-on engineering skill in the UK.
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They're training someone now, but because the pay is so much lower than being a design engineer, all the previous trainees bailed to pursue that instead.
Without incentive it's going to continue to be a decline. The manufacturing moved overseas because of cheaper costs to do so. As education levels rise, already being seen in many industries e.g. outsourced programmers, so will the engineering jobs.
Won't be able to make anything in the country, won't be able to find anyone to design anything in the country.
In theory I'm in favour of this nationalisation (and indeed that of the railways and other key infrastructure). That being said, I do wonder about how nationalised industries can best handle...
In theory I'm in favour of this nationalisation (and indeed that of the railways and other key infrastructure).
That being said, I do wonder about how nationalised industries can best handle salary decisions and such in the absence of typical market forces. Curious if anyone has experience of how that maths plays out.
Currently this blast furnace runs at a loss (£700,000 a day). What level of loss is deemed acceptable? Or is it a primary concern to attempt to turn the assets profitable in short order?
Are salaries to be frozen or cut? Seems like government incentives might not be aligned with cost control when one could buy local votes at cost to the tax payer elsewhere? A non-military industrial complex of sorts?
With the existence of a broader labor market that is subject to broader trends in labor supply and demand, I'd think that their salary decisions will be close to that of the broader market. If...
With the existence of a broader labor market that is subject to broader trends in labor supply and demand, I'd think that their salary decisions will be close to that of the broader market. If they need labor, they'll pay for it, much like with any other owner.
As far as the loss goes, the other side of the question is: what would it do to the price of steel if all/most of it had to be shipped into the country? What would that do to the stability of all of the industries that depend on steel? Would that cost a quarter billion in aggregate a year? The total market for steel (production & consumption both) in the UK is £7.2 billion. If shipping raw steel into the country rose prices 5%, that would already cost more than the cost of the plant.
Admittedly, this is the government directly subsidizing the steel industry, but subsidizing vital industries to maintain domestic industrial capacity is a fairly sensible thing for governments to do if they're going to be putting a thumb on the scales of the market.
I’m not deeply informed on this one, and as I understand it a decent amount of the public info that exists is speculation anyway, but from what I’ve been seeing there seem to be externalities...
I’m not deeply informed on this one, and as I understand it a decent amount of the public info that exists is speculation anyway, but from what I’ve been seeing there seem to be externalities involved beyond just the profitability of the plant itself.
My understanding is that that the owners have been refusing a lot of seemingly financially superior bailout options in favour of a shutdown, and executives were actually physically removed from the premises after workers called the police the other day.
Basically, I think the answer to what level of losses are acceptable probably comes from a bigger picture analysis that estimates the economic and strategic value of being able to say “we’ll just make it ourselves if we need to”, and the projected loss to wider economy from a weaker international negotiating position if that’s taken off the table by shutting the plant down.
Now, do I trust the government to accurately project those numbers and make sound decisions about opportunity cost? Ehhh… they’ve got a pretty poor track record, that’s for sure, although most of that in recent memory was a different party. I’m not especially hopeful it’ll be managed well, but the early indications are that this is actually some sensible long term thinking to nationalise it in the first place, so I’ll keep a little bit of tentative optimism alive for now.
I'm curious if this is just delaying the decline of hands-on engineering skill in the UK.
We've historically been awful at incentivising people to take up skilled trades like metalwork - there are very few trade schools and very little school time dedicated to working on machines. Keeping the plant open for now is great, but I don't think there will be enough people with those skills in 15-20 years when the current workforce start retiring.
Anecdotally, one of my parents is retiring from a highly skilled metalworking job they've had for over 20 years, and while the work itself isn't going away the company doesn't have anyone able to step in full-time. They're training someone now, but because the pay is so much lower than being a design engineer, all the previous trainees bailed to pursue that instead.
In both salary and skill training, we don't value these people until they're about to disappear and then we panic and do something like this.
Hopefully this panic kickstarts some reform in the education/apprenticeship side.
Without incentive it's going to continue to be a decline. The manufacturing moved overseas because of cheaper costs to do so. As education levels rise, already being seen in many industries e.g. outsourced programmers, so will the engineering jobs.
Won't be able to make anything in the country, won't be able to find anyone to design anything in the country.
In theory I'm in favour of this nationalisation (and indeed that of the railways and other key infrastructure).
That being said, I do wonder about how nationalised industries can best handle salary decisions and such in the absence of typical market forces. Curious if anyone has experience of how that maths plays out.
Currently this blast furnace runs at a loss (£700,000 a day). What level of loss is deemed acceptable? Or is it a primary concern to attempt to turn the assets profitable in short order?
Are salaries to be frozen or cut? Seems like government incentives might not be aligned with cost control when one could buy local votes at cost to the tax payer elsewhere? A non-military industrial complex of sorts?
With the existence of a broader labor market that is subject to broader trends in labor supply and demand, I'd think that their salary decisions will be close to that of the broader market. If they need labor, they'll pay for it, much like with any other owner.
As far as the loss goes, the other side of the question is: what would it do to the price of steel if all/most of it had to be shipped into the country? What would that do to the stability of all of the industries that depend on steel? Would that cost a quarter billion in aggregate a year? The total market for steel (production & consumption both) in the UK is £7.2 billion. If shipping raw steel into the country rose prices 5%, that would already cost more than the cost of the plant.
Admittedly, this is the government directly subsidizing the steel industry, but subsidizing vital industries to maintain domestic industrial capacity is a fairly sensible thing for governments to do if they're going to be putting a thumb on the scales of the market.
I’m not deeply informed on this one, and as I understand it a decent amount of the public info that exists is speculation anyway, but from what I’ve been seeing there seem to be externalities involved beyond just the profitability of the plant itself.
My understanding is that that the owners have been refusing a lot of seemingly financially superior bailout options in favour of a shutdown, and executives were actually physically removed from the premises after workers called the police the other day.
Basically, I think the answer to what level of losses are acceptable probably comes from a bigger picture analysis that estimates the economic and strategic value of being able to say “we’ll just make it ourselves if we need to”, and the projected loss to wider economy from a weaker international negotiating position if that’s taken off the table by shutting the plant down.
Now, do I trust the government to accurately project those numbers and make sound decisions about opportunity cost? Ehhh… they’ve got a pretty poor track record, that’s for sure, although most of that in recent memory was a different party. I’m not especially hopeful it’ll be managed well, but the early indications are that this is actually some sensible long term thinking to nationalise it in the first place, so I’ll keep a little bit of tentative optimism alive for now.