It was a gloomy start for families in 1980 when in January that year many well known Blantyre companies announced redundancies. As a new decade started, several Blantyre firms consolidated their troubles.
On 7th January, an astonishing 170 jobs were lost at Blantyre Engineering. Receivers were to be called in and it was expected that all the remaining workforce would also soon lose their jobs, although hope remained at that time that the factory could be sold or saved.
That same week Reyrolle Belmos the electrical equipment manufacturers announced that 10%, around 70 of their 700 employees were to be made redundant. A spokesperson for the company commented at the time that it was due to a downturn in manufacturing.
Also that week, Executex Clothing Ltd laid off 26 workers from the 180 strong workforce but were quick to add they weren’t in trouble and were going to stay in Blantyre. Simplicity Patterns had laid off 70 people just a few weeks earlier.
In the space of a month, 346 jobs in Blantyre had vanished, creating a noted rise in unemployment. It is little wonder there was such appetite for ASDA to be built as quickly as possible, the foundations of which were already in by that Spring.
From “Blantyre Explained” by Paul Veverka (c) 2018
Featuring Blantyre Project Social Media with permission. Strictly not for use by others on or offline, our visitors said:
Caroline Rundell My dad was a semi skilled sheet metal worker at reyrolle belmos and i remember him being paid off especially all the worry from both my parents about paying bills etc x
Thomas Barrett The Maggie Thatcher era I was laid off from EFG just after my daughter was born in April.