03_SHD_May.qxd:ShD re-design 1/5/07 09:39 Page 3
Editorial comment ■
A welcome from
the editor
The news that Toyota and BT are to merge under one most likley from overseas.
umbrella company came as a bit of a surprise. The Yes, we have a skills shortage, in case you didn’t already
surprise wasn’t the fact that they are to merge, but they know, and it’s about time we did something about it. Too
are to do so without the shedding of staff that we have often, companies are not taking training seriously. They are
come to expect these days. not offering new recruits an incentive to join our industry,
Talk at IMHX had been of consolidation within the and neither are they rewarding them enough to stay in it.
materials handling equipment industry. There were too many The materials handling industry has sometimes been
trucks being manufactured, and some were being moved on referred to as a ‘last resort’ industry, whereby a school-leaver
at cost or less than cost price, just to keep the factories will only consider entering our wonderful world if nothing
running. There will be a big move from the Far East, I was better comes his or (occasionally) her way first. Today is the comment
told, as European manufacturer after European manufacturer moment to change that, or all this wonderful growth we have
that can’t afford to compete gets snapped up by Chinese invested so much in creating will drip away from us.
corporations (sounds more like capitalism than communism, A team of experts put forward their own opinions in our
but who am I to argue?) Famous names will soon fall by the special ShD Investigates feature on training and skills,
wayside. starting on page 20 of this month’s edition. The picture they
So I stepped into the Toyota/BT press conference paint is not completely grim, but rather one of a ticking time
expecting to hear confirmation of one of these scenarios. I bomb.
wondered which of today’s euphemisms for getting rid of It’s time to tackle this important issue at a national,
your surplus staff would be used during the presentation, governmental level before our leadership in the logistics
buried between layers of good news about rebranding and industry goes the same way as our leadership in
relocation. How about a ‘streamlining’ of the businesses, or manufacturing went - i.e. down the proverbial spout.
that old chestnut ‘downsizing’? Would they blame the
situation in The Gulf for this raft of ‘decruiting’? Why not
blame a downturn in sales last year for a round of
‘rightsizing’, a process in which a company’s excess human
stock is ‘ICEd’ (Involuntary Career Event-ed)?
Well, how wrong could I be? Rather than stripping away
its good people, the sharp new TMH operation is actually
growing in size. It plans to increase its staff by 20 per cent
over the next three to five years. What a vote of confidence
Editorial
for the UK labour force from this market leader, but where
are all these skilful new service engineers going to come Peter MacLeod
from? As things stand, not from our schools and colleges, but Editor
No wonder
we’re
‘Racking pains’
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www.PressOnShD.com May 2007 ShD 3
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