Economy
Bridgend's Travel to Work Area has expanded since 1991 and the 2001-based area now incorporates the western part of the Vale of Glamorgan.
Bridgend recovered quickly from the decline of traditional industries, particularly coal-mining due to other alternative forms of employment. Wages are generally higher here than in other parts of the South Wales valleys. There are large industrial estates at Bridgend and Waterton (formerly Waterton Admiralty) which host a number of small scale and multi-national companies, mainly manufacturing.
Ford's engine plant near Waterton employs around 2000 workers and is one of the area's largest employers, working on range of low carbon "EcoBoost" engines. The plant has won praise from Peter Mandelson who in January 2009 described it as "a top-of-the-class, world-beating engine production plant." Ford has invested £315million in the Bridgend plant over 5 years.
There are more successes, IT Consultancy Group Logica opened an office in Bridgend (which has since been expanded). German retailer Lidl has also set up its Welsh headquarters and distribution site at Waterton. Zoobiotic, a company specialising in maggot therapy, has its facility near Bridgend town centre. Also, since 1983, famous dart board producer Winmau has based its global headquarters in Bridgend.
Other notable companies with a presence include bio-technology companies Biotrace, Biomet, Bio-Tec Services International & Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. Stationery company Staedtler, engineering consultancy Skanska, aeronautic maintenance and project management company TES Aviation and home accessories manufacturer Dekor plc also have significant offices and facilities in the town. The Semiconductor Photomask Company, Photronics Inc, has had a manufacturing operation for the last 20 years at the Ewenny Science Park.
However, there have been significant economic blows to Bridgend including Sony's closure of the Bridgend plant and downsizing of the Pencoed plant. Other manufacturers to have pulled out of the area include Wrigley Company and Dairy Farmers of Britain which went into receivership in June 2009.
Bridgend (like Wales in general) suffers from a lack of high-wage service jobs, however the retail sector in particular provides a large proportion of employment in the town and borough. In 2008, 13,100 people in Bridgend County were working in construction and manufacturing while 42,900 were working in the service sector StatsWales 2008 employment report.
Sub-regional GVA for the Bridgend & Neath Port Talbot NUTS3 region stood at £12,402 per capita in 2006 ($23,191 at June 2006 values). This figure represents 65% of the UK GVA per capita, 87% of Welsh GVA per capita (£14,226) and 103% of West Wales & The Valleys GVA per capita (£12,071).
Gross disposable income for Bridgend & Neath Port Talbot in 2006 stood at £3,338million or £12,379 per head. This is 88% of UK per head figure (£14,053) and slightly above the Welsh per head figure (£12,366).
In 2008, the average full-time gross weekly earnings in Swansea, Bridgend & Neath Port Talbot was £484.20 (£531.70 for men, £426.10 for women). This is 97% of the Welsh average (£498.10).
In the first half of 2009, unemployment in Bridgend County Borough stood at 8.9% and economic inactivity stood at 21.4%.
The percentage of workless households in December 2008 stood at 20.6% compared to the UK average of 16% and the Welsh average of 18.8%.
Read more about this topic: Bridgend
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind—no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be—there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“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)
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)