Government called on to introduce an economic plan to help UK manufacturers through the pandemic as there has been a decline in investment.
New research from Make UK, the manufacturers’ organisation suggests 35% of manufacturing largest concern for the next year is further lockdowns.
Manufacturers have made 50% of workers redundant, which has also had a knock effect to apprenticeships with just 20% seeing a recovery in orders.
Chief executive of Make UK, Stephen Phipson, told Sky News Ian King Live, “There is a lot of concern about the possibility of repeat lockdowns going forward.
“We have seen around 20% of businesses in the manufacturing sector see any kind of recovery in their orders.
“We have seen a massive reduction in investment – we are down nearly 25% year to date And it is the demand side that really worries manufacturers, If you can’t ship parts overseas because of restrictions, that tends to limit the amount of activity you are able to do
“We have seen around 50% of manufacturers now making redundancies and that has a knock-on effect with taking on apprenticeships.
“So, there are quite a lot of second order effects here in the manufacturing sector… That’s why we are today calling for a three-point plan to try to co-ordinate the national effort to make sure we have got a strong and resilient manufacturing sector coming out of these lockdowns.”
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