Multiple strengths of the manufactoring sector (2006)

The industrial fabric is constantly being rewoven, but only the greatest ruptures and the most sudden developments seem to attract attention whilst gradual disappearances and creations within the same economic sector are often neglected.

For the past few decades, however, it has become increasingly evident that industry has relinquished to the tertiary sector its role as the leading employer, this change occurring much earlier in Britain than in France. What industry remains has been transformed not just in terms of declining sectors but also by internal restructuring throughout. The permanent backdrop to this change is the increasing complexity and cost of the manufacturing process itself and of the training required.

On the French side of the Channel, a basic division exists between the old industrial regions, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardy and Seine-Maritime, and the newer industrial regions of Brittany and Lower Normandy. The former have had to confront the many problems of restructuring, with related social and economic change, whilst the latter have been affected only sporadically.

Today, industrial employment represents 18% of the labour-force. The Ile-de-France is the leading region (with 14% of France's industrial employment), just as it is in the tertiary sector. In Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the fourth largest French industrial region, the most important three branches are automobiles, steel and glass. Picardy, with its long traditions and a quarter of its employment in industry, is more associated with agro-alimentary products, plastics and metalworking. Upper Normandy is also strong in automotive and electrical goods but specialises in chemicals and para-chemicals. To the west the most recent branch of industry, but also the fastest growing, has been in the particularly strong agro-alimentary sector where Brittany is the pre-eminent French region, employing 15% of the national work-force. In Lower Normandy, in addition to agro-alimentary industry, the automotive sector, particularly components and electronics, remains important.

The traditional clothing and metalworking sectors continue to decline in terms of employment, whilst the more recent agro-alimentary, automotive, electronics and plastics industries are undergoing a profound restructuring. Within the latter, new specialisms are emerging, including the increasingly important pharmaceuticals and publishing sectors.

Across the Channel Britain, the first country to industrialise, would also be the first to de-industrialise. Decline has been uneven geographically; a north/south divide becoming all too evident, but so too were variations within regions. In southern England there was clearly another divide, albeit shifting, between the metropolitan east, centred on London, the national capital, and the more peripheral west, straddling its long peninsula. For the southeast, the recession of the early 1990s proved something of a rude shock after the growth-dominated previous decade. Having a low percentage of its total workforce in manufacturing was a bonus, as the region had barely been touched by the economic downturns experienced elsewhere.

Manufacturing industries located around London benefited from good transport connectivity as well as ready access to government offices and research establishments, all of which helped induce concentrations in high-tech and defence related industries. For example, Bedfordshire within the Oxford-Cambridge Arc which was rapidly becoming one of the world's leading centres of the knowledge economy, had attracted major employers in electronics, light and precision industries, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. But it is the location of the British-dominated motor sport industry that immediately catches the eye. In an 80 km radius around Oxfordshire, some 50 000 people are employed in hundreds of small and medium-sized firms, a truly global industry.

Further removed along the coasts of North Kent and South Hampshire, the situation was very different. The two long-established naval dockyard towns, each with its associated local industrial base, faced crisis. Chatham Dockyard closed in 1984, immediately impacting on the economy of the Medway towns, while Portsmouth underwent some radical restructuring as a result of both the massive reduction in employment of skilled artisans in the contracting dockyard and the shift to high technology in the growth of a private sector defence industry, some of it to be located elsewhere. However, after a gap of over 30 years, strong local traditions in naval shipbuilding have won Portsmouth at least a part share in the construction of the new generation of warships. The southwest region lacks the geographical coherence of its southeast counterpart, operating rather as a series of sub-regions based around its main towns. At the same time, significant and persistent differences in economic performance are reflected in the “Development Area” status still attached to parts of Western Cornwall and North Devon. Yet overall, the southwest is one of the UK's most prosperous regions, not least because it had little in the way of remaining traditional heavy industries.

Old images of traditional industry in the southwest have largely been eclipsed by several clusters of industrial innovation, but, nevertheless, with a strongly established base in the region. British Aerospace, now BAE, dates back to the decentralisation of aircraft construction before the Second World War and is now the 3^rd largest global defence company. The aerospace industry today employs over 40 000 people in the Bristol area and includes Airbus, Rolls Royce and many sub-contractors. Within the wider region, Westland Helicopters at Yeovil (operating there since 1915) is now owned by Finmeccanica from Italy. The equally modern “sunrise” sectors in high-tech fields like computing and electronics boast familiar names, as in the telecommunications research laboratories of Toshiba, Orange and Hewlett Packard, many located strategically along the M4 corridor. Many such locations, particularly in the southeast region, have proved attractive to inward investment by international companies. Maintaining and increasing global competitiveness emerges as the much-repeated refrain of current development strategies in both regions. In sectors like marine industries, already well embedded along the south coast around the Solent and Poole the UK leads in Europe and over 40% of the workforce is employed in the southeast region. The sector is seen as a regional “winner” but comparative advantage needs constant reinforcement at a time when the wider economy is exhibiting an acceleration of competitive change.

Equally clear in terms of the current pace of change is the increasing integration along the research and development axis, a coalescing of new information and communications technologies, as well as other specialised producer services. Industry has become increasingly interlinked with the tertiary sector.