UK manufacturing- what happened ?

[chris vickery]

My question is this: Wht will happen to natons that were built on industry when all the industry vanishes. Supportive businesses will also suffer. One only needs to see any mill town that has closed up shop. Everything from the coffee shop to the clothing store suffers. Many people only look at the direct business which closes and never look at the collateral damage inflicted.
I could hazard a guess that for every factory of 500 people it is probably 10x that amount which feels the closure.
When you figure that the factory buys supplies somewhere for their goods, probably has a lunch room or cafeteria, has toilets which needs cleaning product TP etc, office supplies, courier services, trucking in and out, plus the fact that the locals spend their money on things like groceries, clothing, entertainment etc.
6 years ago, the company I worked at closed up our division and sent 500 packing. A few months later, Imperial Tobacco did the same. Euclid had a big layoff and Engel shut down.
This was in the City of Guelph, approx pop. 100,000. This meant that around 1000 to 1500 jobs, high paying lost. People working at these places were among top wage earners in the area.
If you figure an average of 4 person families, that is 4 to 6,000 people directly impacted or 4% to 6% of the population. Add in the collateral damage and tell me that does not hurt a city of this size.
Then to top it off, they try and make it up by inviting Big Box stores into town like Walmart. A slap in the face. They say we can get on there. Not this guy. To go to a third of the salary and work for a company that thrives on selling foreign made crap, I think not.
We have certainly allowed ourselves to get into one big mess in this world.