To Corus's sacked workers and their families, this will be of little consolation, though. It may sound harsh, but the economic impact will be very localised. Without a doubt, the areas where the plants will close down will be devastated, and highly specialised steel workers will find it difficult to find new jobs quickly. UK job centres currently list more than 300,000 registered vacancies. The simple fact is that to UK plc, manufacturing is not that important anymore.
Services now make up two-thirds of the UK economy, manufacturing supplies a mere one fifth.
During the past 10 years, the service sector has created two million jobs. And these are not low-paid jobs pulling pints in the local pub.