Bosch to quit south Wales with the loss of 900 jobs

[wemorgan]

BBC News - Bosch to quit south Wales with the loss of 900 jobs

Poor chaps.

 

[d w124]

BBC News - Bosch to quit south Wales with the loss of 900 jobs

Poor chaps.

Cheaper labour.

 

[wemorgan]

and lower transport costs.

Plus more likelihood of Hungary joining the Euro than the UK.

 

[PJH]

It's very annoying hearing on The News that " the recession is over ". RUBBISH. The Bankers part of the recession may be over but many other businesses are still on the way down.

 

[davidjpowell]

i visited this site a few years ago for work. I was surprised at how big the plant was, but how the space was not used intensively at all.

its sad for those who work their, especially given the few jobs in that area, but I am not surprised.

In their favour the Welsh Development Agency are very effecrive and have had good success at bringing new business into Wales

 

[NICKYB]

The way its going there will be no engineering jobs left in the UK, If somthing is not done we will all end up selling food and insurance to eachother!
The main uni in South Wales no longer has an engineering department! however Drama and Dance is still going strong! (what a joke)

There is a lot of hype in Wales regarding company start up programs / new company grants....i am yet to hear of a company that has actualy got one! we are 12 months in to our new company and after 6-7 months of meetings we were unable to get any help! the chaps we met with were getting a very nice salary for holding the meetings though!

 

[st13phil]

It's not all about lower labour costs. The big issue is that there is structural overcapacity within Bosch (just look at the volume reductions quoted in the BBC article) and when that happens you consolidate where your labour costs are lowest. Without the fall in volume there would be no structural over capacity and the labour costs would not be an issue.

 

[corned]

we are 12 months in to our new company and after 6-7 months of meetings we were unable to get any help! the chaps we met with were getting a very nice salary for holding the meetings though!

I have been of the opinion (for a long time now) that these regional development quangos are merely a sneaky way to help keep the unemployment figures down. I.e. provide useless jobs for a number of people, but no grant/loan assistance to struggling enterprise like they try to convince the public they are there for.

It's not just south Wales either; not by any stretch of the imagination...

 

[Merc Owner 2B]

Didn't our government give Bosch a £20,000,000 + incentive to go to Wales?

 

[Mudster]

It's very annoying hearing on The News that " the recession is over ". RUBBISH. The Bankers part of the recession may be over but many other businesses are still on the way down.

My business neighbour has just gone out of business, this week.

He's a Hauler and has been operating for 30 years and like most operates on invoice discounting/finance.

The finance company has decided now that after 30 years He's not profitable and can't draw down any more funds with immediate effect......bang overnight because cashflow has been severed.

The guy was in tears, I feel genuinely sorry for him, he's a decent fellow that looks after his employees and has ethics.

He's not the only one, there are businesses falling like flies around us.....it's really not good. Can you image the carnage when interest rates get back to where they should be.

 

[wemorgan]

I don't like thinking of the profits that banks make due to 'luck' but then they reward themselves with such high bonuses. When will people twig that the skills they supposedly posses are no greater than the next man's.

Whereas 'real' wealth generators simply get on with life to make a living and don't need bonuses for motivation.

Oh well.....time for another glass of wine I feel.

 

[thedoc]

Whats happening to British Industry?

 

[Merc Owner 2B]

Whats happening to British Industry?

What's happening to Britain???

 

[wemorgan]

I blame Hitler.






ps. Yes I did watch QI this evening

 

[nick mercedes]

Whats happening to British Industry?

We sold it.

 

[Rory]

He's not the only one, there are businesses falling like flies around us.....it's really not good. Can you image the carnage when interest rates get back to where they should be.

One slightly wierd thing is that my wife works in Insolvency and they're quietly getting rid of people (civil servants being made redundant!) because not as many people and companies are going bust as they expected. A few months ago she was working overtime.

 

[mbenz76]

It's a terrible thing when a business goes under, for everyone involved in that business, but are more businesses going under now (as in right now when we are supposed to be coming out of recession) than before the recession started?

Businesses have always folded for one reason or another, but you never heard about them in anything like the same way. But now the recession is big news every business that folds is down to the recession and you hear about businesses hundreds of miles away going under when before the recession it would only have made local news.

Some of the businesses going under as a result of the recession may have gone under without the recession.

 

[davethemus]

Can you image the carnage when interest rates get back to where they should be.

spot-on, i believe that's when it will get much worse. no-one talks about this though.

 

[davethemus]

Whats happening to British Industry?

it was out-sourced or privatised

 

[Mudster]

One slightly wierd thing is that my wife works in Insolvency and they're quietly getting rid of people (civil servants being made redundant!) because not as many people and companies are going bust as they expected. A few months ago she was working overtime.

There is a reason for this, this of course is a personal view.

The Govt have created a vacuum to stop a bubble bursting. That vacuum is a base rate of 0.5%, printing cash and bailing out the banks on a wholesale basis.

Effectively we're in the eye of the hurricane right now and it's all eerily calm.

Some of my bigger contractor customers, housebuilders etc started again and things looked really quite rosy. Now they are all starting to fail terminally as the promised funding has failed to materialise.

From November onwards my business started to pick up to pre recession levels. I don't think there is more business out there or even the same amount of business to be honest. I think I've lost enough competitors to take up the slack right now.