Chapter IV. Industrial Production

In the four quarters from the end of 1979 to the end of 1980, industrial production fell 12 per cent and manufacturing 14 per cent. The average changes for the year were 8 per cent and 9 per cent. The largest previous post-war fall in manufacturing, in 1974-5, was 8 per cent over two years. In the first quarter of 1980 manufacturing output would, but for the steel strike, have been only slightly below the average level that had been maintained through 1977-79. In the subsequent quarters, excluding the recovery of steel output, it fell 6 per cent, 3 per cent and 3½ per cent (Statistical appendix table 2). There are only two manufacturing sectors in table 1 that do not show a decline for the year as a whole. It is essential to emphasise the unprecedented extent and size of this fall because individual industrial falls of 10 or 15 per cent can otherwise look like exceptional disasters, requiring special explanations and demanding special measures of assistance. Although there were of course influences that made the position of individual industries even worse than that implied by the general fall in demand (some of these are discussed in the next section), it is against the background of a general fall of 9 per cent that their relative importance must be measured.