Dr John Ashcroft: Chamber's New Chief Economist

Dr John Ashcroft, Chief Economist at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber’s new Chief Economist made his debut at last week’s Council and Economic Briefing.

Dr John Ashcroft gave a presentation on the findings of the Chamber’s latest Quarterly Economic Survey (QES).

He said: “I’ve always been a fan of the QES. It’s a very accurate representation of what’s happening in Greater Manchester. It’s the most authoritative survey and it also tells us what’s happening in the national economy.

“The pattern looks pretty positive for the rest of the year. The growth will come from the service sector. There are signs of positive activity in the manufacturing sector, but the service sector is leading the way.

“Here we are at the end of June and we are still pretty optimistic about the outlook for the British economy this year. The level of confidence is looking good in both manufacturing and the service sector.”

As Chief Economist, he said he wanted to “emphasise how relevant the QES is to the national economy and how important Manchester is to the national economy.”

Dr Ashcroft is Chief Executive of pro.manchester, but is working on a part-time basis to fulfil his additional role at the Chamber.

He was followed by Kevin Green, Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employers Confederation, who talked about the issues affecting the jobs market.

He pointed out that although there had been low growth, the private sector was still creating jobs.

“Employers have learnt from previous recessions, so we didn’t see the mass redundancies of past recessions. Employers hung on to their talent because finding new talent is difficult, expensive and time-consuming”, he said.

He explained that the jobs market was changing with the rise in the number of part-time workers, temps and freelancers. And with 83% of young people saying they wanted to run their own business at some point, the market will change again.

During his presentation, he highlighted skills and an ageing population as the two biggest challenges facing the UK economy.

He said: “We have problems finding the skilled people we need. We produce half the number of engineers we need each year. IT skills are also in short supply with some programmers able to name their price.

“Figures show that 39% of employers are struggling to recruit workers with technical STEM skills and 41% say the shortages will persist for the next three years.”

While he welcomed the fact that programmes like ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Dragons’ Den’ were raising the profile of business, he said he was concerned they were changing young people’s attitude to work.

“We want that entrepreneurial spirit, but it will cause problems for businesses.”

The presentations were followed by an update on the Chamber’s Action for Business work from Chris Fletcher, Policy and Communications Director at the Chamber, and Baroness Bev Hughes.

Chris said: “The work starts now on our Business Manifesto setting out what we want to see going into the 2015 General Election. This will be one of the most important elections of recent times and we want the voice of Greater Manchester to be heard.”

Baroness Hughes talked about the work of the new Policy Committee, which has been set up to oversee the Chamber’s policy work.

The event finished with a presentation to Youth Charter of the proceeds from the charity collection at the Chamber’s Annual Dinner.

The Council and Economic Briefing, which was held at HSBC, Spinningfields, Manchester, was attended by business people from across Greater Manchester and a delegation from Atlanta, Georgia.