Economy
| Bolton Compared | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 UK Census | Bolton | GM Urban Area | England | |
| Population (16–74) | 97,859 | 1,606,414 | 35,532,091 | |
| Full-time employment | 37.0% | 40.1% | 40.8% | |
| Part-time employment | 11.7% | 11.2% | 11.8% | |
| Self-employed | 6.7% | 6.6% | 8.3% | |
| Unemployed | 4.2% | 3.6% | 3.3% | |
| Retired | 13.0% | 13.0% | 13.5% | |
| Source: Office for National Statistics | ||||
At the time of the 2001 Census, there were 56,390 people in employment who were resident within Bolton. Of these, 21.13% worked in the wholesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles; 18.71% worked within manufacturing industry; 11.00% worked within the health and social work sector and 6.81% were employed in the transport, storage and communication industries.
In the last quarter of the 20th century heavy industry was replaced by service-based activities including data processing, call centres, hi-tech electronics and IT companies. The town retains some traditional industries employing people in paper-manufacturing, packaging, textiles, transportation, steel foundries and building materials. Missiles were produced at the British Aerospace (BAe) factory in Lostock, now closed. The Reebok brand's European headquarters are located at the Reebok Stadium. Bolton is also the home of the family bakery, Warburtons, established in 1876 on Blackburn Road. On 13 February 2003, Bolton was granted Fairtrade Town status.
Bolton attracts visitors to its shopping centres, markets, pubs, restaurants and cafes in the town centre as well retail parks and leisure facilities close to the town centre and in the surrounding towns and suburbs. Tourism plays a part in the economy, visitor attractions include Hall i' th' Wood, Smithills Hall and Country Park, Last Drop Village, Barrow Bridge and the Bolton Steam Museum.
There are several regeneration projects planned for Bolton over the next ten years including Church Wharf by Ask Developments and Bluemantle costing £226 million, Merchants Quarter by local developer Charles Topham group costing £200 million, Bolton Innovation Zone(BIZ), a large £300 million development with the University of Bolton at its core. The central street development, by Wilson Bowden Developments Limited is a retail lead development costing £100 million.
In 2008, Watson Steel Structure of Lostock, Bolton was awarded the contract to build the steel structure for the 2012 Olympic arena. The mascots for the 2012 games are based on two drops of steel from the Lostock firm.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant’s economy is a coarse symbol of the soul’s economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)