Seeing jobs in the nuclear pipeline

Jun 22 2009 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette

THOUSANDS of skilled manufacturing jobs could be created over the next decade with Government support for energy sources such as nuclear and clean coal, the UK’s biggest union will say today.

Unite is bringing together some of the major players from the power generation industry and manufacturers of energy components for a conference in London today to explore the ‘‘major opportunities’’ for job creation as well as the potential for exports.

Speakers will include Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and officials from Scottish Power, RWE npower, Rolls Royce, Doosan Babcock and Sheffield Forgemasters.

Unite’s national officer Dougie Rooney said: ‘‘Nuclear power, clean coal and carbon capture technology are key to meeting our future energy needs while reducing emissions.

‘‘With the right support from the UK government, Britain could become the centre for a global engineering supply chain - 10,000 skilled manufacturing jobs could be created as a result.

‘‘The demand for components and equipment from power generation companies gives UK manufacturing companies huge opportunities to expand.

‘‘Britain has taken the lead in developing the technology. The Government must foster the right environment for British manufacturing to flourish once again. The export potential is global and reaches out to countries including India and China. The opportunity to create thousands of highly skilled jobs in the UK over the next ten years cannot be missed.’’

Hartlepool has been named by the Government as a potential site for a new nuclear power station.

The sites have been nominated by companies interested in building the stations and have been initially approved by the Government.

The proposals form part of the Government’s plan to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to help close what has been described as a “generation gap” expected as existing nuclear and coal-fired stations shutdown.

Progressive Energy is developing a £1.5bn carbon capture and storage (CCS) project on Teesside. The project would create 1,500 construction and 150 permanent jobs.

There was also bleaker news for the service sector today, however.

Around 334,000 jobs will lost across the business services sector during the coming three years, researchers warned today. The centre for economics and business research (cebr) said the recession would lead to more than half of the jobs that were created in the business services sector during the past five years being axed by 2011.

Even by 2013, there are still expected to be 311,000 fewer jobs in the sector than there were during the peak year of 2008.

The group said sectors which relied on the investment cycle, discretionary budgets and public sector spending would suffer the most, with advertising the worst hit.

The business services sector has been one of the strongest performing parts of the UK economy in recent years, accounting for around a third of all new jobs created.