CONFIDENTIAL
4. The labour force in the Lancashire textile industry, (as
Graph A shows) is still running down more slowly than the Textile
Council forecast. But unemployment in the industry, which in
1969 and 1970 was running at about 2 per cent in the industry is,
on the latest available figure (August 1971) now over 4 per cent;
about 4,500 workers out of a total of 104,000 were then out of
work. Moreover, other work is at the moment hard to find, and
total unemployment in the Lancashire textile belt is now about
3.8%, or just about the national average. There has been a spate
of mill closures this year, with more to come, but even so these
(Graph B) have also not gone as fast as the Textile Council
predicted.
5.
Surplus capacity has been eliminated too slowly; in mid-
1971 the industry still had 3.4 million spindles compared with
3.9 million in 1968 and the Council's forecast of 1.7 million
in 1975. Weaving capacity has come down more quickly, but almost half the 1
half the looms are still non-automatic, which is very high by
international standards. Investment has also been low, possibly
£15 million or less a year against the £15/25 million minimum
which the Council regarded as necessary.
Of course,
investment
in UK industry generally is currently too low and Lancashire
would attribute some of its short-fall to its peculiarly unstable
conditions.
6. Much of the stagnation in demand since 1968 can be ascribed
to the general state of the economy. But an important factor has
3.
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