Press releaseTuesday 12 August 2008
BOOM IN ENGINEERING SECTOR IN NORTH-EAST AS CAMBRIDGE DECLINES
- 23,000 new engineering jobs created in the last 4 years
The number of engineering professionals1 in the North-East of England has leapt a massive 33% over the last four years, with over 4,000 new jobs created in the region since 2004, the largest increase of any region of the UK, compared to a 6.4% increase nationally (23,000 new jobs), according to giant group plc, the contractor services payroll provider.
According to the latest data obtained by giant from National Statistics, the number of professional engineers employed in the East of England has dropped by 8% over the same period, the equivalent of 3,000 job losses!
Matthew Brown, Managing Director, of giant group explains: "Following almost 40 years industrial decline, which trimmed the engineering workforce to the bone, the engineering and manufacturing base in the North-East of England is benefiting from a period of sustained expansion, which is creating new opportunities for contractors."
"Across the North-East, openings for contractors are continuing to be created over a range of different sectors; including the automotive, aerospace and oil & gas sectors."
"The automotive sector has created significant demand for contractors in the North East in recent years, and now has the most productive car plant in Europe, which Nissan is continuing to expand."
"There has recently been a change to a 24-hour shift system, which will increase production by almost 50% to 500,000 cars, employing nearly 4,500 permanent staff and 500 more on a contract basis."
He adds: "There has also been a surge in demand for contractors in the oil and gas sector in the North East, which has expanded to capitalise on the rising price of energy."
The UK region exhibiting the worst decline of professional engineers is the East of England, where the industry has shrunk 3% by 3,000 jobs since 2004.
According to giant, the engineering sector in the East of England is more specialised in electrical and electronic engineering. Many companies merged and/or shifted production offshore, both of which lead to job losses.
Matthew Brown says: "The engineering sector around Cambridge has been hard hit by the offshoring of production to cheaper locations such as China and India. To an extent growth in the electrical and electronic engineering sector has been replaced by the emergence of biotechnology and software clusters, but these industries need different types of skills."
"Cambridge has recently faced well-publicised difficulties allowing growth of these high-tech business sectors, mainly due to restrictive planning laws, which has sent rents sky high."
He continues: "This lack of infrastructure development combined with increasingly prohibitive costs in Cambridge, explain why there has been loss of engineering skills from the region."
1 Engineering professionals are accredited by the Engineering Council UK as either: Chartered Engineer, Incorporated Engineer or Engineering Technician
Note: Established in 1992, giant group specialises in providing services to recruitment agencies, temporary workers, freelancers and contractors. The range of services include agency back office solutions from giant precision – timesheet management, billing, payroll, contract management, pre-employment and background checking, BACS disaster recovery – and giant umbrella payroll services where giant is the professional employer organisation employing and payrolling the temporary workers and contractors.
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