As the sewing machines whirred at British clothing maker Season Link's busy factory floor, joint owner Sarjan Singh bemoaned the country's struggling manufacturing sector, ahead of a general election.
"Nobody's mentioned anything about what they are going to do for UK manufacturing at the moment," Singh said in reference to the three main parties slugging it out to win office on May 5.
British manufacturing -- in stark decline for the past 20 years -- has lost more than 1 million jobs since Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government swept to power eight years ago, many of which have been outsourced to Asia and Eastern Europe.
"We need support from the government but it would be too little too late," said Richard Marshall, whose leather goods factory employing 30 people is based in Birmingham along with Singh's workshop.
"They've never helped this industry. All they have done is just let it go down the pan," he said.
A recent survey showed that England's West Midlands region -- a traditional industrial heartland and home to Britain's second city Birmingham -- currently employs 469,000 manufacturing workers, equivalent to 12.58 percent of Britain's 3.726 million total workforce.
Blair's government, hoping to win an unprecedented third term on an economic ticket, has been keen to paint itself as the savior of British manufacturing, despite the recent collapse of bankrupt car maker MG Rover, also situated in Birmingham.
Faced with thousands of job losses at MG Rover's Longbridge car factory and its suppliers across marginal constituencies in the area, Blair has sought to reassure voters by stressing the "absolutely vital" importance of manufacturing to the country's economic success.
"But it's a case of what kind of manufacturing," Singh countered.
"Industry is changing here. There is still manufacturing done, but it's just not the original engineering-based manufacturing," he said as he watched over his machinists making piles of colorful women's tops.
"Globalization has made a big effect. Generally what we're finding is that any big orders tend to go off-shore now. They're not made in the UK."
British companies are under increasing pressure to relocate parts of their business overseas to remain competitive. A survey for the Confederation of British Industry last November revealed that 30 percent of 150 business leaders questioned had switched activities abroad.
Of those who had begun to outsource, 51 percent moved manufacturing to India, while 49 percent had staff working in China, 24 percent in Poland and 20 percent in the Czech Republic.
Singh said his workforce had shrunk from 20 to eight in the past two years, as sales orders dropped off owing to competition from cheaper foreign-produced goods.
Britain's clothing and textiles industry employs about 16,000 people across the West Midlands region, producing annual turnover in excess of ?300 million (US$575.7 million), according to Kim Knowles, chief executive of local industry body Midlands Fashion Showcase.
"But a lot of that money will have been sent overseas to source the manufacturing," he added.
Questioned about outsourcing, he replied simply: "It's business, it's called globalization. Some of them are finding it very tough to change with the times."
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