Funds of £12m pledged to West Midlands manufacturing

Funds of £12m pledged to West Midlands manufacturing

Manufacturing in the West Midlands is to receive a £12m boost.

Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund have pledged the funds, according to the Manufacturing Advisory Service.

There are plans to use the cash over two years to support 3,000 small and medium-sized firms employing up to 250 workers.

The service said the money "has to be focussed very carefully" but "can have some quite considerable effects".

The advisory service covers the West Midlands, Coventry and Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

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Budget or Fudget.....

At-a-glance: Budget 2010 key points

 

Chancellor Alistair Darling is delivering his third Budget and the last one before the general election. The key points will appear on this page as they are announced:

 

FUEL, CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL AND FUEL DUTIES 

1. 3p fuel duty rise to be phased in between April and January 2011 
2. Duty on cider to rise by 10% above inflation from Sunday
3. Wine, beer and spirit duty up 2% a year until 2013
4. Tobacco duty up 1% this year and 2% a year in future years  

 

HOUSING

1. Stamp duty scrapped for homes below £250,000 for first-time buyers
2. Stamp duty on residential property sales over £1m to increase to 5%

 

UK ECONOMY

1. Economy contracted 6% during the recession  
2. Predicted growth of 1-1.25% in 2010, in line with forecasts
3. Downgrades growth forecast for 2011 to 3-3.5%

  

HELP FOR BUSINESS

1. £2.5bn support for small business to boost skills and innovation
2. One year business rate cut from October to help 500,000 companies
3. Investment allowance for small firms doubled to £100,000
4. Doubling relief on capital gains tax for entrepreneurs
5. No change to capital gains tax rates
6. £385m to maintain road network

 

BANK LENDING

1. One-off bank bonus tax has raised £2bn, double the amount forecast
2. Backs tax on bank transactions but on global basis
3. A million extra people guaranteed basic bank account
4. RBS and Lloyds Bank Group to provide £94bn in small business loans
5. New service to adjudicate credit disputes

 

JOBS AND TRAINING

1. Amount of time over-65s have to work to receive work credits reduced
2. Six month work or training guarantee for under 24s extended to 2012

 

BORROWING

1. Borrowed £167bn in 2009-10, £11bn lower than previously forecast
2. Borrowing to fall from £131bn in 2011-12 to £74bn in 2014-15

 

OTHER TAXES AND ALLOWANCES

1. No changes to VAT or income tax planned
2. Inheritance tax threshold frozen for four years

 

GOVERNMENT SAVINGS

1. On track to achieve £11bn efficiency savings target
2. Reform of housing benefit to save £250m
3. 15,000 civil servants to be relocated outside London

 

ENVIRONMENT

1. £2bn investment bank to back low-carbon industries

 

 

 

 

 

Earth Hour

Swindale Parks Recruitment have just signed up to WWF's Earth Hour.

Why not do the same? Switching off your lights to support WWF’s Earth Hour is a very visible demonstration of support and will create interest and publicity for this global event. You or your company can help by switching off all non-essential lighting for one hour on Saturday 27 March 2010 at 8.30pm to show we care about climate change.

Employment figures not lagging.......but not leading either

This is not the UK labour market of old: the headline unemployment numbers are moving with the economy, not lagging far behind as they have in the past.

But there's nothing in these figures to suggest the labour market is leading triumphantly ahead.

The employment picture for the next year looks even more fragile than the economic recovery.

The claimant count in February has seen the largest one month fall in more than a decade, and the surprisingly sharp rise in January has been revised down.

The broader measure of joblessness also fell by more than 30,000 in the three months to January.

So, the unemployment numbers appear to be flattening out much sooner than in past downturns. The number of vacancies is also rising surprisingly soon.

But there's still plenty to be concerned about: not least, the fact that employment also fell over those three months, by 54,000.

A very large rise in inactivity made up the difference: some 149,000 people have dropped out of the jobs market altogether. It's difficult to draw any firm conclusions about that rise: two-thirds of it - 98,000 - was made up of students reporting that they were no longer in the market for paid work.

There were also significant increases in the numbers taking early retirement - and choosing to stay home to look after family.

The bigger picture is that the jobs market is still a highly uncertain place. As I've said in past months (see Both accident and design and Which side are you on?) the smaller than expected rise in unemployment this time around owes much to private sector workers taking a hit on their earnings.

The Bank of England warned earlier this week that employers could find it hard to keep on workers in a weak recovery, if employees try to make up the ground they've lost.

Though it must be said that so far there's little sign of that happening, even with the recent sharp rise in headline inflation.

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Wage increases could push up unemployment, Bank of England warns

Lower wage increases meant unemployment during the recession peaked at a lower rate than previous economic downturns, according to the Bank of England’s latest report.

But the outlook for the jobs market is uncertain if workers demand inflation-matching wage increases during a weak economic recovery, the Bank’s first quarterly bulletin for 2010 has warned.

Employment fell by 1.9 per cent in the 2008-09 recession, compared to a 3.4 per drop in the early 1990s and a 2.4 per cent fall in the 1980s downturn. This was despite the economy contracting by 6.2 per cent in the latest recession, compared to a decline of 2.5 per cent in the 1990s and 4.7 per cent in the 1980s.

But in this recession real wages, taking into account inflation, grew by just 0.1 per cent – contrasting with the 7.3 per cent increase seen in the 1990s and a 2.7 per cent rise for the 1980s.

“A marked feature of the response of our economy to the current recession is that employment to date has not fallen by as much as we might have feared given the falls in output,” said Spencer Dale, the Bank of England’s chief economist and executive director.

“To date, businesses have responded to the fall in output by reducing total labour costs by a similar proportion to that in the early 1990s. But the way they have done so looks rather different, with many employees appearing better able to protect their jobs by accepting lower wage growth.”

Inflation remained low during the recent recession, with workers willing to accept pay freezes or reductions rather than broach an uncertain jobs market. But now inflation is rising and the country has officially emerged from the recession, the study cautioned against sudden wage hike demands.

“Employees may have become more confident about the employment outlook and may be unwilling to accept a further squeeze in real wage growth,” it said. “That could lead them to push for higher pay settlements this year. But if companies cannot afford the increase, then they may shed labour in order to contain labour costs.”

The CIPD’s chief economic adviser, John Philpott, agreed that the report offered a realistic assessment of the outlook for jobs.

“The study adds a dose of realism to the view that unemployment is already close to its post-recession peak. As the Bank warns, the risk of further substantial job losses remains, especially if the economic recovery is as weak as most current indicators suggest,” said Philpott

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