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Stuart Nathan
Features Editor
The Engineer
BAE Systems job cuts send unwelcome message
It’s a bad week for engineering in the UK. Large-scale job losses at BAE Systems, the country’s biggest engineering employer — and, therefore, seen as the safest — haven’t come as a shock. They’ve been on the cards since the government’s defence review. But the sheer number of jobs which the company says will ‘potentially’ be lost is still striking. Three thousand people, mostly in the company’s Military Air and Information division: this includes some of the most highly skilled people in the country, in a sector which for much of the past decade has been complaining about skills shortages. It’s hardly encouraging for those students starting engineering courses next week.
The issue is worldwide; it’s not just the UK which is cutting defence spending. Even the mighty US, never a country to shy away from spending on weapons, is being forced to cut back by the ongoing aftershocks of the financial crash of 2008. Among the programmes being scaled back is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which of course also affects BAE Systems, one of the project partners, which is cutting staff at its F35 engineering centre in Samlesbury, one of its hardest hit locations and one of the country’s highest-tech production facilities.
Are BAE’s job cuts short-sighted? The company says that it simply has no choice; that it cannot afford to pay staff for whom there is insufficient work, and that it must cut costs. But it says that it is cutting costs to ensure that it is in ‘the best possible position to win future business,’ in the words of chief executive Ian King.
When and if it does win back that business, who is it going to hire to carry out the engineering? The same people it’s about to make redundant? A new generation, who may well be wary about what happened to their predecessors? How is it going to maintain hard-won skills?
It’s a tricky decision for a company facing hard times, and as we’ve said often, The Engineer staff aren’t economists. But for a company which has been at the forefront of the complaints about skills shortages and the promotion of engineering as a career in a growing industry with good prospects, the signal this round of job losses sends is dismal, to say the least.
In the defence sector, at least, the main customer is the government, so it’s obvious that the government has a role to play here. The CBI’s director-general, Neil Bentley, has called on David Cameron to publish its Defence White Paper at the earliest opportunity, ‘so that companies across the defence supply chain can plan with confidence and choose to invest here.’ Engineers and their families will surely agree with him.
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Readers' comments (18)
Ray | 28 Sep 2011 12:12 pm
Hardly surprising when all Governments have neglected the Manufacturing sector for decades in favour of fast buck returns from the Financial Sector.
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Jambo40 | 28 Sep 2011 12:15 pm
The Typhoon is hardly awe inspiring or ground breaking in comparison to other fighter aircraft already produced and thus nobody really wants to buy them in the quantities that justify the development or production costs?
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Anonymous | 28 Sep 2011 12:17 pm
It's very sad for the individuals affected and their familys.
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Mick Jones | 28 Sep 2011 12:18 pm
The Government must act quickly to safe guard engineering jobs throughout all sectors, we need to build our way of this recession, we cannot survive by merely supplying services.
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John Harrison | 28 Sep 2011 12:27 pm
In terms of manufacturing, the country is dying a slow, lingering death from a disease with no cure. We simply can't compete financially with products manufactured or assembled overseas. With businesses run by accountants, engineers and assembly personnel, regardless of ability and experience, are now seen as overheads whose skill sets are easily transferrable overseas. More and more, we are becoming reliant on the finance sector which, as we have seen, is at the mercy of global currency fluctuations and markets. I could go on, but I'll probably end up hanging myself. How do we get out of this mess? Does anybody know, because the politicians don't.
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Anonymous | 28 Sep 2011 12:27 pm
"LETS MAKE ENGINEERING/MANUFACTURING APPEALING FOR YOUNGSTERS..."
Yes lets show them that whilst the bankers keep their jobs, post financial mess to which they contributed, the engineers suffer.... AGAIN..
short sighted fooooolishness.
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Paul | 28 Sep 2011 12:31 pm
There are still skills shortages and open vacancies according to Radio 4 yesterday, 1000's at similar companies to BAE, just not at BAE at the moment.
If there isn't enough work to cover the costs of running the business action needs to be taken or the bottom line takes a huge hit, which can only be suffered for so long before serious damage is done.
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Richard Jenvey | 28 Sep 2011 12:32 pm
The demand for skills is not just in numbers, but in quality.
Whilst it is sad that so many may be made redundant, these people will become available to other manufacturing companies and go some way to filling their particular demand for skilled staff.
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brian M | 28 Sep 2011 12:36 pm
At a personal level it's pretty devastating for those involved - However for others in the engineering industry the words 'about time' comes to mind.
The way Government (our) money is wasted in the defence industry defies belief (yes have worked in it), so this is a welcome shake up.
Not quite equating defence companies with the banks, but there is a certain familiar smell about them!
Perhaps the world drop in production of expensive weapons is a good thing. Plus some of which are not that appropriate for the foreseeable conflicts we are going to have to fight anyway.
Just look at some of the other articles on your web site/mag - engineering is still looking pretty rosy!
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Anonymous | 28 Sep 2011 12:40 pm
BAE Systems have been sabre-rattling over this for years; they have held a protected position with UK Governments for decades, despite the fact that they have been grossly overmanned and inefficient for years. The reason Eurofighter does not sell abroad is that it has been built-both deliberately and as a result of the UK procurement methodology- to be as expensive as possible; the nearest thing to value engineering has been not gold plating some of the platinum parts. To be fair, this is kind of inevitable with the UK procurement system where you know the number to be bought will always be cut, so it displays the gross failure of the MOD as well as the fact that BAE themselves have been structured through years of effective subsidy to be a very poor (yet wealthy) business.
As for the skills shortages, well, I'm trying to recruit Engineers. The sad thing is that most Engineers don't actually do any engineering.
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