Good news for jobs…almost

As we’ve made it a habit here to report on many of the job losses over the last six months it would seem churlish not to raise a small cheer for the news that Nissan is to create 350 new jobs at its Sunderland plant.  But two thoughts spring quickly to mind: first, this is a tiny number of new jobs compared with the many that have been lost in the car industry and in the wider economy; and secondly, reading the BBC’s piece on the news reminds us that 1,200 jobs there had been cut earlier this year. For ‘new jobs’ it might almost be better to substitute ’saved jobs’ since the likelihood of these positions being filled by recently redundant members of the Nissan workforce must be pretty high.

Once again then, a small cheer; but as they’ve been saying at Lords today: ‘it ‘ain’t over yet’.