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Manufacturing our road to recovery

MADE UK has this month prepared a great document outlining what manufacturing needs to fully recover from the Covid-19 situation.  This reflects what our manufacturing clients are telling us.

In summary, the paper sets out our three point plan: boost economic confidence, ensure a safe return to work and build resilience. It includes a series of policies to support the manufacturing sector, stimulate recovery and help place the UK economy in the best position to deliver a digital, global and green future.

Make UK’s latest Manufacturing Monitor found that while 87% of manufacturing companies have continued trading to some extent during the pandemic, one in five companies have furloughed up to a quarter of staff, 15% of those by up to half. And a third of companies will wait to see an increase in orders before taking staff off furlough and getting them back to work.

Over the past two weeks, more than three-quarters (76%) of manufacturers have experienced a decrease in sales while eight in ten (81%) have seen orders fall. A small number have seen increases in sales and orders (6% and 8% respectively) of, for example, medical devices, cleaning products or packaging, and some companies have repurposed production to try and meet this demand. However, 13% of manufacturers have either temporarily closed or paused trading. Many others have significantly reduced production, mainly because demand for their products has disappeared or because disrupted supply chains mean that they cannot obtain essential components or raw materials.

To ensure the quickest possible return to as normal trading conditions as possible. To turn this crisis into an opportunity – by using it as an incentive to adopt new technologies and boost efficiencies and to ensure the UK is best placed to hit the ground running when this crisis is over by putting in place innovative and future facing policies and practices now. 

Click through to the report to see what MADE UK thing the government and manufactures should be doing.  It is an interesting read.

This crisis has demonstrated the vulnerability of supply chains and the consequences of an underinvested manufacturing base with limited
domestic capacity to produce critical products.
As companies increasingly consider reshoring, the crisis has also highlighted the increasing
importance of export success to the UK economy

By Charles Whelan on 28/05/2020