UK govt to boost job growth in private sector

Jaguar Land Rover was one of a handful of firms invited to a major jobs summit in Downing Street on Monday, as part of the British Government's plans to boost job growth in the British private sector.

Nineteen firms, including the Tata subsidiary, took place in the conference on Monday morning, which a spokesperson for Downing Street described as a ‘dialogue' between some of the country's major employers and the government about private sector job creation. “The firms were invited because of the commitments they have made towards job creation in the UK,” said the spokesperson. “The government wants to learn about what more we can do to create the right environment for employers in the UK.”

JLR plans

Jaguar Land Rover currently employs around 17,000 people, the vast majority of whom are in the UK and that figure is expected to rise to around 18,000 by the end of the financial year. “Jaguar Land Rover is determined to grow significantly over the next few years by expanding our strongest-ever vehicle portfolio,” said Dr Ralf Speth, chief executive of JLR, ahead of the conference.

Last year, Jaguar Land Rover dropped plans to shut one of its manufacturing sites — either at Solihull or Castle Bromwich, and announced a major recruitment drive to hire 1,500 new workers at its Halewood plant, primarily to work on the new Range Rover Evoque. JLR has also said it would hire 1,000 new engineers, and has created a 100-million-pound partnership with Warwick Manufacturing Group. Based at the University of Warwick and set up by Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, the manufacturing group is a research and academic centre committed to reinvigorating manufacturing in the UK.

Growth pledges

Other firms invited to the conference include retailer Marks and Spencer, which pledged to increase its retail space growth in the UK by up to 3 per cent and create ‘significant' job opportunities, fast food chain McDonalds, which says it will create 3,000 new jobs this year, Microsoft, which says it will create 4,000 new jobs, and InterContinental Hotels, which expects to add around 1,000 jobs. Notably absent from the meeting were big names in the financial services sector, though a spokesperson for Downing Street said it wasn't a deliberate move.

Britain's financial services sector is returning to tentative growth, but with costs very much in focus, its role as a major employer is expected to continue to diminish. On Monday, the Confederation of British Industry published a survey revealing that in the last quarter, jobs in the financial services sector fell at their fastest rate since March 1993, with employers maintaining a downbeat outlook for employment for the year ahead.

Nurturing private sector

However, in other sectors, the situation has been decidedly less gloomy, with 3,00,000 private sector jobs created over the past six months. The British Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, is keen to maintain the momentum, and improve the environment for business. “We can only get our economy back on track by creating a climate in which the private sector can grow and develop, creating jobs and opportunities for people across the country,” said Mr Cameron on Monday.

As part of its austerity drive to reduce the fiscal deficit, the coalition government will cut hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs, but is hoping that the private sector will step in to take on many of the workers who lose their jobs. The independent Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts that employment could rise from 29 million this year to 30 million in 2015 as private sector job creation more than offsets falling public sector employment.

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