 Mr Matthews fears more companies will close without investment |
The one time powerhouse of British manufacturing, the Midlands, has recently taken a battering with thousands of jobs being axed at some of its most prestigious factories. Land Rover, Corus, Alstom and Goodyear Dunlop have all announced redundancies in the past months, with most blamed on foreign competition.
So has the death knell sounded for Midlands manufacturing?
Nick Matthews, principal fellow in the manufacturing group at the University of Warwick, believes so and says complacency is to blame.
He says the region desperately needs to reclaim the legacy of its great industrial innovators and invest in new products.
"Manufacturing has been in decline for about 30 years, it is much worse than the 1980s, the present level of investment is a near death experience for British manufacturing," he said.
"There won't be an end to it, manufacturing will just finish."
He said the Midlands had been hard hit because manufacturing was so important to the regional economy.
Mr Matthews pointed to Telford's Abraham Darby and Rugby's Frank Whittle as men of vision whose like was lacking in the regional industry of today.
"We need to start producing more of these type of people, technologists, or we've had it," he said.
He said the loss of jobs had left firms "too lean" to be able to develop new products, and argued British manufacturing now had "a product deficit".
"We thought we would get all the inward investment of the mid 80s and lots of service jobs to absorb workers so we didn't need to pay lip service to manufacturing," he said.
"Now all that inward investment is going to the bigger markets in Asia.
"It is no longer about productivity or quantity of output, it's about the quality of the products themselves.
"You only have to look at our cars, they do not come from cheap places, they are from far more higher regulated, more expensive places like Germany, France, Sweden and Italy.
"What they've got that we haven't is far more exciting products."
He called on the government to support companies in becoming more productive, with changes to the tax system and by encouraging links with universities.
But Jerry Blackett, policy director of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, is more optimistic for the future of manufacturing.
"The decline is slowing. There are enough people now looking to the future which says there is a future in manufacturing," he said.
He agreed British manufacturing had been slow to invest in new technology but said workers also had to move with the times.
Mr Blackett challenged what he called the "unfair competition" which had led to the planned closure of the Alstom factory in Birmingham.
He said the company was abiding by a French law which decrees a percentage of trains must be produced in France.
"I think we will continue to see a decline in the number of manufacturing jobs but a number of businesses are adapting themselves now and concentrating on the design elements of the product rather than mass production," he said.
But he admitted some companies were struggling to fill creative vacancies.
"We are seeing a bit of a lag, the skills base has been slow to change, but there is a huge amount of retraining going on at the moment."
One-Minute World News 
News services
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
What they've got that we haven't is far more exciting products 
