Doom and Gloom

We used to have 4 car manufacturers here in Oz, Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi & Toyota, now we have none, all manufacturing gone to Asia where its miles cheaper.

I think JLR is using Brexit and Diesel as an excuse to shift manufacturing to somewhere much cheaper.


They are, China and Slovakia. However they're basing their electric manufacturing at the UK plants
Also they're looking to make the redundancies voluntarily, so although the jobs will be lost, hopefully they'll be a lot of people who can retire early

Just on Brexit
Slovakia contributes £0.6B to the EU and takes out £1.6B. So not only are they stealing British jobs, they're taking a fair sum of our EU contribution
 
We used to have 4 car manufacturers here in Oz, Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi & Toyota, now we have none, all manufacturing gone to Asia where its miles cheaper.

I think JLR is using Brexit and Diesel as an excuse to shift manufacturing to somewhere much cheaper.

Exactly this.
Brexit has fuck all to do with this decision. It is merely a partial smokescreen.
The serious downturn of the Chinese market is what has hit them hardest.
Same with Apple. Without a doubt a recession is on the Horizon. My prediction is
September / October this year. Why?
The economy in China is in trouble (it was always a bubble)
The German economy is seriously slowing down.
The American economy has been fuelled by tax cuts which are unsustainable.
The 7 year cycle - it is due.
Batten down the hatches. Reduce your personal debt and hunker up. Its going
to be a bad one...
 
They are, China and Slovakia. However they're basing their electric manufacturing at the UK plants
Also they're looking to make the redundancies voluntarily, so although the jobs will be lost, hopefully they'll be a lot of people who can retire early

Just on Brexit
Slovakia contributes £0.6B to the EU and takes out £1.6B. So not only are they stealing British jobs, they're taking a fair sum of our EU contribution

And some people wonder why 17.4m people voted to leave?
 
FWIW, if anything, I am an economist/data scientist by trade and am generally on the doom side based on quite a few public market indicators (and some less public ones, a few already mentioned in the thread), as well as general business trends that will strain (and likely eventually dissolve) established economic subsystems (which, unlike in previous economic revolutions, will likely not be replaced unless there is governmental intervention).

I’m also now on the gloom side, as my company just implemented a sweeping “restructuring” yesterday and, while I kept my position, I lost half the team I manage and many more colleagues across other areas of the organisation (all very good people from around the world, including the UK). Some of them are on the older side, having been with the company for decades, and as my field skews heavily young (as so many do these days, most often to their detriment), they will likely have trouble finding a position befitting their experience/skills (and matching their previous wage) elsewhere. We’ll likely lose a few more in short order based on discontent from a role/rank reshuffle as part of this change and there’s no telling if there will be another round later in the year (which I may very well be included in, so I am of course now looking for new pastures in earnest). There are rumblings a few competitors are going to follow suit in the next few months, as well, which will make job seeking that much more difficult for those that departed yesterday.

I’ve not got a lot of optimism in general right now.
 
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We used to have 4 car manufacturers here in Oz, Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi & Toyota, now we have none, all manufacturing gone to Asia where its miles cheaper.

I think JLR is using Brexit and Diesel as an excuse to shift manufacturing to somewhere much cheaper.

We cant mass produce cars in this country any more, probably since the 70's. Jaguars have lost their identity and not so long ago every sheep/hill farmer round here had a Landy. I now see those guys driving Ford Rangers, Isuzi, toyota, and mitsubushi pick ups. Land rover has shot itself in the foot regarding the Defender. A market they will struggle to get back when the new so called Defender replacement finally makes its debut.

Brexit will be the go to excuse for anything that fails and like the Y2K bug......a small amount of people will make a serious amount of money somewhere. On the upside, the landlord of our local is having his kitchen renovated, he does good food and looks after his Purple Moose.
 
We cant mass produce cars in this country any more, probably since the 70's. Jaguars have lost their identity and not so long ago every sheep/hill farmer round here had a Landy. I now see those guys driving Ford Rangers, Isuzi, toyota, and mitsubushi pick ups. Land rover has shot itself in the foot regarding the Defender. A market they will struggle to get back when the new so called Defender replacement finally makes its debut.

Brexit will be the go to excuse for anything that fails and like the Y2K bug......a small amount of people will make a serious amount of money somewhere. On the upside, the landlord of our local is having his kitchen renovated, he does good food and looks after his Purple Moose.

We make more cars now than we ever did in the 70s.
 
FWIW, if anything, I am an economist/data scientist by trade and am generally on the doom side based on quite a few public market indicators (and some less public ones, a few already mentioned in the thread), as well as general business trends that will strain (and likely eventually dissolve) established economic subsystems (which, unlike in previous economic revolutions, will likely not be replaced unless there is governmental intervention).

I’m also now on the gloom side, as my company just implemented a sweeping “restructuring” yesterday and, while I kept my position, I lost half the team I manage and many more colleagues across other areas of the organisation (all very good people from around the world, including the UK). Some of them are on the older side, having been with the company for decades, and as my field skews heavily young (as so many do these days, most often to their detriment), they will likely have trouble finding a position befitting their experience/skills (and matching their previous wage) elsewhere. We’ll likely lose a few more in short order based on discontent from a role/rank reshuffle as part of this change and there’s no telling if there will be another round later in the year (which I may very well be included in, so I am of course now looking for new pastures in earnest). There are rumblings a few competitors are going to follow suit in the next few months, as well, which will make job seeking that much more difficult for those that departed yesterday.

I’ve not got a lot of optimism in general right now.

Us FOCs have been through umpteen restructures. It’s the natural order of things. Globalisation and technology will see it accelerate, if anything.

Rail against it or adapt. If you’re a leftie, blame every bastard under the sun and promise you’ll borrow sufficient billions to spend our way out of it.

To get really disillusioned, though, visit the Brexit thread where Bluemoon’s finest pessimists spin their shite. (I learnt to avoid the place a year ago.)
 
Us FOCs have been through umpteen restructures. It’s the natural order of things. Globalisation and technology will see it accelerate, if anything.

Rail against it or adapt. If you’re a leftie, blame every bastard under the sun and promise you’ll borrow sufficient billions to spend our way out of it.

To get really disillusioned, though, visit the Brexit thread where Bluemoon’s finest pessimists spin their shite. (I learnt to avoid the place a year ago.)
Appreciate the thoughts from a fellow SB. ;-)

This is not my first restructure, either, but a unique one as they go for reasons I can’t talk about. I’ve managed to survive all so far, thankfully, but that run with end eventually.

Among the business trends I was referring to in my original post were technological changes (if you think you’ve seen economic disruption from automation, for instance, just wait), so agree there. But globalisation is an age old force, nothing novel or unforeseen there, so I wouldn’t count it among the accelerants. I was speaking about acceleration of workforce displacement/underutilisation, though, which will be a major challenge.

We’re in for a ride, and those that adapt best are of course nearly always those that manage to survive (though, not necessarily thrive, depending on the circumstances)—it’s been my guiding principle all of my life, as I am sure it has been yours. I don’t advocate “railing against it”, as that’s just shouting at the wind. I do think working to mitigate some of the abhorrent effects of the disruption is not only needed but a duty for those that are in a position to do so, though.

I shared the bit about the restructure as it is recent, instructive, and indicative of what is to become even more frequent than in the past, so in line with my “doom” prognosis. I also wanted to highlight how these events may be more destructive than in recent times.

I know several very skilled, extremely competent, highly educated older people who were let go in the last restructure in 2017 that still have not been able to find work making anything near their previous salaries (which has been devestating to them and their families). They have tried to set themselves up to be adaptive, but there are other forces creating barriers to entry for them that they cannot adapt to (namely that recruitment skews heavily toward young people and there are actually fewer positions available after the various restructurings as entire jobsets are being replaced with automated systems). Some might argue this is the same as the industrial revolution but there is a lot of evidence it is actually very different from a job/value creation standpoint. Many of those that were let go now work on short-term contracts (another practice that is going to become more common in every industry, regardless of the role/work) with little to no benefits; in many ways it is a practice intended to exploit their desperation. And those working in the USA (wish I had never accepted the position that took me here, but that’s different discussion) just hope they do not get injured or sick as that would likely mean financial ruin.

As far as the Brexit thread is concerned, I try to stay clear of it these days; there’s too much nonsense and anger from both sides to have a decent, evidence-based discussion.

All of that said, I think I also posted because I’ve been in a bit of a bad place as of late, and yesterday’s events took me further down, so wanted to get some of it out for discussion. BM is (save the Politics subforum) usually a decent place to do that, as we’re all generally upstanding blues looking to support each other.
 

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