Macroeconomics: UK economy, IB Economics

Confirmation that Tata is planning to shut both blast furnaces at Port Talbot, making three-quarters of the workforce redundant, that's 3,000 workers. 

It will be a hammer blow to the town, and trigger a large negative regional multiplier effect. It will be interesting to see the policy response of both the Westminster and the Welsh governments. Will they opt for an interventionist response, and if so , what form will it take? 

Train manufacturer Alstom has announced that its order books are empty after the first quarter of 2024, and that as a result it could be forced to lay-off up to 1,300 workers. 

Such a loss of jobs would be likely to have a sizeable negative regional multiplier effect. 

I'm not sure that this classifies as news given that it was widely reported at the time the government agreed to subsidise British Steel's Chinese owner, Jingye Group, adopting green electric arc furnaces rather than coke-fired furnaces.

Either way, it's likely to see half of the workforce at the company's Scunthorpe plant laid off, and will trigger a negative regional multiplier for an already fairly depressed region. 

The closure of the Grangemouth refinery would be a hammer blow to the Scottish economy although Petroineos are trying desperately to repackage the move as a pivot towards a more renewable future. 

The reality is that 500 direct job losses would trigger a negative regional multiplier, something that Scotland could ill-afford. 

A classic example of a negative regional multiplier as Jasper Jolly looks at how the prospect of 2,000 losses in the steel industry has wider ramifications for the town of Scunthorpe.