As Chevron announces plans to sell its refinery in Pembrokeshire to focus on gas and building up its market in Asia, Forbes magazine worryingly suggest that they may not be able to find a suitable buyer in the near futureThis begs the real question whether they will take the hit and just close it down, especially as Chevron has indicated that it intends to cut 2,000 jobs this year and will continue reducing its work force through 2011.
This would be a serious blow to the industrial sector within Wales, which has already seen major job cuts during the last eighteen months.
Indeed, the employment statistics related to occupations showed that, during the period Jun 2008-Jun 2009, over 34,000 posts were lost in Wales, a reduction of 3 per cent.
However, according to statistics wales, whilst managerial and service occupations only declined by around 4 per cent, jobs such as process, plant and machine operatives - the key workers in production industries - went down by 11 per cent and accounted for over 38 per cent of the occupations lost in Wales during this period.
This demonstrates the declining state of the manufacturing sector in Wales, and the urgency to have a coherent strategy to stop the decline of this vital sector.
Comments
Keep up, DJE :-0)
Unfortunately it is too little and too late, I am afraid, to save these jobs.
One can only hope that WAG fully implements the forum's recommendations and if it wasn't for the constant pressure from David Melding, the strategy would have been quietly shelved.
My worry is that the economic renewal programme has already decided its priorities and that the forum may find its strategy may not be 'fit for purpose' for DET.
Hopefully not but let's see.
Indeed, one has to ask why the forum allowed the report to be shelved in the first place ata time when manufacturing was being decimated in the recession - the point made above.