Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
Who told you that  |
How many sources do you want? If that is not common knowledge than I don't know what is! You say £200m revenue as if that is substantial for a company, where I work a single contract can be worth that and with a revenue of £1.4bn/year. I would almost consider where I work to be partially in the manufacturing industry, and even then at £1.4bn I say it's small.
As usual I have just done my homework, here you go:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Government - ONS
The manufacturing industries contributed more than 20.0 per cent of GVA until 1998, when it stood at 20.0 per cent, but has fallen every year since then, to 14.1 per cent in 2004.
|
We have a Financial Service industry that is a massive 30% of the economy, ICT not far behind. In reality, as that statistic is old you will find industry has dropped to around
9.8%.
You have to consider Britain was once almost entirely proper industry. The industrial revolution was born here, we are the ones that made the modern world. This powered our empire, the biggest the world has ever seen, and industry took over from agriculture as the major source of wealth for the country.
Change happens, and it's not always bad, it's just different. Agriculture dropped from basically 100% before the industrial revolution and proper industry took it's place. Now services are by far the biggest part of the economy, probably 70% when you combine government/financial/technical. Industry is a lonely 9% and agriculture is just about 1-2%.
And yes you are right, we now design the stuff but still need to people to make it. But most those people live in China. We live in a world where even Boeing and Airbus are making their planes in China due to the savings. There will always be stuff that needs to be at home, and that small amount of stuff accounts for the small 9% of the economy, and falling.
I am not trying to put down the industry down, I am an engineer and rely on industry to build the stuff we design. I am just saying things aren't what they used to be, and manufacturing is not really the best place to look for jobs right now compared to some of the more technical industries.