Monday, January 05, 2009

The curse of Brown strikes Wedgwood

I was very sorry to hear about Waterford-Wedgwood going into administration this morning.

In my professional capacity I've spent a number of days at their site and its in a wonderful location and when you walk around it you think you're in one of those play school through the round window experiences.

Automation, necessary with competition from the far east, had reduced the work force a bit, but still highly skilled jobs existed in the design facility and production line. The sort of skills that will just be lost, unless people can move to another china manufacturer.

Wedgwood has survived the 70's and 80's and even held its on against globalisation. Its also a business that should be benefiting from the pounds dive in value, just the sort of export lead manufacturing business that was supposed to be saving us after Gordon Brown's failure to regulate the baking industry put us in this mess. It has gone under due to the inability to find credit facilities. And that too is very worrying.

Wedgwood are a famous brand (even my spell checker recognises it) and perhaps that will help them to find a buyer, I certainly wish all the employees well for their future. They are a famous and dear part of our heritage.

3 comments:

Letters From A Tory said...

Are bookmakers taking bets on which national chain will go bust next? As I blogged about this morning, Labour seem desperate to encourage gambling in these terrible economic times.

Man in a Shed said...

The problem is that the Son of the Manse keeps doubling up his bets and he's not playing with his own money.

I'll be over to read your post once I equip myslef with a new cup of coffee ( got to keep the cold out down in the Shed ! )

Bill Quango MP said...

LFAT. it should be easy to pick the next fallers, but there are too many possibles. I had my money on Debenhams but it seems they are looking at raising equity capital in a bid to reduce its debts. depends how that goes I guess.Trading statement tomorrow.

Real shame about Waterford-Wedgwood.
Hang on to any pieces you have and you can EBay yourself out of recession in 2010.