[DaveO]

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:39 am  

Dally wrote:

How do you move these jobs? Companies locate where they do for reasons. For instance, they need access to markets and a skilled / educated workforce. The only way to get them to move en masse would be heavy government subsidy - which would be counter-productive so far as the overall UK position is concerned and lead to further cuts in public services. The future of the welfare state absolutely and totally depends on the North and West of the UK becoming economically stronger and the South and East staying relatively strong. As someone is getting older I want the welfare state to exist in future!

There is absolutely no need for the majority of the jobs in the service/banking sector to be loacted in any particular part of the country anymore never mind London and the SE and it is those sectors that provide most of London's contribution to the countries GDP. The skilled / educated workforce follows the jobs not the other way around. I did it myself on leaving Uni. I worked in London for 12 years. Most of my contempries did.

These days I still work for a very large financial software company but "up north" and at least two days a week from home. The head office is in the SE but it is small. The largetst UK offices are in Birmingham. They just shut an office in Regents street to move the techies from a company recently taken over out of central London. It makes no sense paying London rents/rates when the jobs can be done elsewhere.

As to moving north being a problem, the BBC seem to be doing OK in Salford and the effect on the area and local economy is very positive. If an organisation like the BBc can do it I am sure others who basically just need office space can do the same.

Of course simply moving jobs about the country won't automatically increase the coutries GDP by a significant amount if at all but I would not be surprised if moving out of the overcrowed south didn't have at least some positive effect in terms of less lost productivty due to all the problems that brings and a lot lower cost base.

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:49 am  

DaveO wrote:

Of course simply moving jobs about the country won't automatically increase the coutries GDP by a significant amount if at all but I would not be surprised if moving out of the overcrowed south didn't have at least some positive effect in terms of less lost productivty due to all the problems that brings and a lot lower cost base.

If it was cheaper to produce outside London then why aren't private companies naturally doing it?

They all want to maximise profits right?

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:15 am  

Dally wrote:

Well it clearly hasn't worked that well otherwise the stats. would be someehat different.

Furthermore, are these high profile regeneration projects politically inspired and often wasteful? In you example, The Don Valley stadium was one such project - closed now (last I heard) due to tack of cash to maintain and run it. City of Manchster stadium was supposed to be a focal point to regenerate a run a run down area. Last time I visited (granted a couple of years ago) the surrounding area did not look regenerated!

Well the plans for that regeneration – primarily the Etihad Campus, plus housing and amenities – had barely come off the planning board at that stage. There is plenty of regeneration that has been going on in that area for some years – new blocks of flats all over the place, for instance, The tramline is now up and running. But I appreciate that these are facts.

It is worth noting that the area that is now being prepared for the Etihad Campus used to be home to many engineering companies. They died in the 1980s when that evil old bitch decided that we needed to have an economy based on shopping and finance.

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:36 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

If it was cheaper to produce outside London then why aren't private companies naturally doing it?

They all want to maximise profits right?

I know of one major company that looked at relocating North, to the premises of a recently taken-over company. What killed the deal was the suggestion that those moving North should be given a hefty, one-off relocation bonus to compensate for the potential of lost equity in their employees' houses.

In less than a generation we'd gone from compensating someone for moving to a high property value area to the exact opposite.

[DaveO]

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:43 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

If it was cheaper to produce outside London then why aren't private companies naturally doing it?

They all want to maximise profits right?

It is cheaper to produce outside London. That is why the company I work for has its offices where it has. It needs a presence in London so has a small head office there but everybody else is elsewhere.

When I worked in London I worked for a Software House that was doing a lot of work on back office trading systems around the time of the Big Bang. The office was just south of London Bridge a stones throw from Guy's Hospital. This though was outside the "City" and believe it or not many City firms viewed software companies that weren't actually located in the City themselves as some sort of second rate company. So one and by no means small reason is simply historical intransigence in my opinion.

This was before widespread use of the Internet, email and so on but now there is just no reason to locate any software development outfit in the south east. Post big bang with the stock market completely electronic you could move entire trading floors out of London and no one would notice you had done it.

If we can outsource to India we can outsource out of London.

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:08 am  

DaveO wrote:

It is cheaper to produce outside London. That is why the company I work for has its offices where it has. It needs a presence in London so has a small head office there but everybody else is elsewhere.

When I worked in London I worked for a Software House that was doing a lot of work on back office trading systems around the time of the Big Bang. The office was just south of London Bridge a stones throw from Guy's Hospital. This though was outside the "City" and believe it or not many City firms viewed software companies that weren't actually located in the City themselves as some sort of second rate company. So one and by no means small reason is simply historical intransigence in my opinion.

This was before widespread use of the Internet, email and so on but now there is just no reason to locate any software development outfit in the south east. Post big bang with the stock market completely electronic you could move entire trading floors out of London and no one would notice you had done it.

If we can outsource to India we can outsource out of London.

I remember reading of one guy who was awarded "Rail Commuter of the Year". A couple of years before the Big Bang, he was working as a stockbroker in The City and living in East Sussex. He bought a house in Flamborough and until the Big Bang, spent months driving from his home to York, where he caught the train to Kings Cross and returned home each day. When he was questioned about his travelling, he cted a number of reasons:

The main reason was that his family had always wanted a house overlooking the sea, buying at Flamborough meant he could get a five bedroomed house for less than he'd pay for a beach hut on the South Coast. He also reckoned he was more productive because he could work on the train, something he found impossible on his daily commute previously. He also reckoned he was only working an hour a day extra anyway.

Once the big bang occurred, he simply opened an office in York and worked from there

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:12 am  

Dally wrote:

Part of Manchester is the most diverse. So your point is?

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:18 am  

cod'ead wrote:

I know of one major company that looked at relocating North, to the premises of a recently taken-over company. What killed the deal was the suggestion that those moving North should be given a hefty, one-off relocation bonus to compensate for the potential of lost equity in their employees' houses.

In less than a generation we'd gone from compensating someone for moving to a high property value area to the exact opposite.

I don't quite grasp the requirement for that kind of relocation bonus.
Surely, if they sold their London property they'd liquidise the equity into cash that they could use, if they so chose, to invest in the London property market?
If they didn't sell, they'd still have the house along with its equity.

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:31 am  

DaveO wrote:

... If we can outsource to India we can outsource out of London.

Or we could create new jobs and not simply 'outsource' some other poor bästard's job.

Re: The UK's economy becomes more unbalanced : Fri Mar 15, 2013 12:52 pm  

Dally wrote:

It's clearly more sensible to spend much more on transport for an overcrowded global city that drives the country's economy than in a provincial ares that already has relatively good transport links and a superb motorway network.

Then shut up moaning about the imbalance between the North and South then.
You can't have it both ways.