Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
Renishaw’s Chris Pockett featured on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC 2 show yesterday morning giving manufacturers reaction to the budget. Chris took the chance to talk about MACH 2016, you can view the interview here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b072zdbm/victoria-derbyshire-17032016 (skip to 14minutes in to view).
“Boring budgets are good for Chancellors” muses the MTA’s Head of External Affairs Paul O’Donnell when looking at what tricks Mr. Osbourne pulled out of his red box this week. Read the MTA’s assessment below.
We have a full update on the Learning and Development Zone at MACH 2016 and all the fantastic MTA member companies who have provide apprentices and equipment. The L&D Zone is a key fixture of MACH 2016 and aims to encourage the next generation of engineering talent into the manufacturing industry.
A conference will be held in London next month (11th- 12th April 2016) highlighting the New Prospects for British-Iranian Trade and Investment. MTA members can receive a discount on attendance, details can be found within the Brief.
It has been National Apprenticeship week this week and around 120 youngsters, aged 12 to 14, took part in an Engineering Extravaganza. Organised by four professional engineering institutions as part of British Science Week and staged at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s Knowledge Transfer Centre. Find out details in the story below.
UKTI would like members to fill in this survey to help them to identify barriers to trade and investment in Mexico – https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/UKTI_market_survey.
From April 2016, all workers aged 25 and over are legally entitled to at least £7.20 per hour. Employers are advised to take four steps to be ready for the change, find out what they are below.
The latest data on manufacturing output in the UK followed the usual pattern with a small reduction overall, with diverging trends for the key industry sectors; there was a small dip in the Automotive sector, but this is more a reflection of a couple of exceptional months at the end of 2015 and may have more to do with the pattern of seasonal adjustment than any real trend. In contrast, there was a sharp leap in industrial production in Europe in January and while we need to be careful not to read too much into one month’s figures, it was also encouraging to note that of the sub-sectors within manufacturing, it was capital goods output that led this growth.
That’s all for this week, we’ll be back next Thursday to ensure you get all the latest industry news before the Easter break.