New generation of manufacturing specialists could make the North an economic force again: Yorkshire Post Letters

I READ that only two young people in 100 express an interest in manufacturing. This is both depressing and absurd (The Yorkshire Post, August 3 and 4).

Manufacturing industry provides everything we eat, drink, wear, live in, drive, ride, travel by, watch, read, listen to, use and communicate through. Everything else is peripheral.

Modern manufacturing is a highly technical business calling for innovation, technical knowledge, organisational ability, financial planning, people skills and much more.

It is truly ridiculous to denigrate it as has been the fault of higher education in this country for generations.

The argument that manufacturing has to be carried out in low wage economies becomes ever more unsustainable as it becomes more sophisticated and less labour intensive. And look at Germany, a high wage economy with a brilliant manufacturing sector.

In large part, the industrial revolution started in the North of England. Clever people in Yorkshire and Lancashire invented and manufactured sophisticated textile and other machinery, and built world dominating industries based on them. Tyneside invented the hydraulic crane, the steam turbine and electric light bulbs, not to mention railways which were exported all over the world. Teesside had the wonderful ICI, a dominant force in the world in chemicals.

Despite the overwhelming importance of manufacturing in our lives, even here in the North it is only about 10 per cent of the economy. Surely this is unsustainable?

We urgently need to inspire our bright young people to be excited by the challenges of manufacturing. With imports from countries such as China a much less attractive proposition in the wake of Covid-19, and climate change a strong incentive to develop green industries, is this the great opportunity for the North to become again the dominant force it once was?

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

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Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor