This continues a positive job market trend first identified by this website a year ago.
In total, 18,646 new jobs have been created in the food and drink industry since January – whereas 6,188 were lost or threatened.
Retailers
Retailers played a big part in the job cuts and creations, with Lidl and Asda pledging to create 14,500 new roles between them.
Morrisons contributed to over a quarter of the job cuts from the sector, when it revealed plans to cut 2,600 jobs in a management restructure last month.
Almost the whole of the UK features on our map – compiled from stories published on FoodManufacture.co.uk between January and June 2014 – from the north of Scotland where Maclean’s Highland Bakery created 12 jobs to 58 jobs under threat at Müller Wiseman Dairies’ depot in Cornwall.
Click on the blue pins on the map to read all about the jobs created in that area. The red pins will reveal exactly where jobs were placed in danger or cut. Zoom in and out to get a complete picture of where jobs have been created or put in danger throughout the UK.
The north west of England and the west midlands played a big part in both job cuts and gains.
Manchester alone was a hub of activity, with Kellogg’s cutting 80 jobs, Bright Blue Foods axing 57 positions, Extons Foods creating 24 roles and Healthy Food Brands offering 8 new positions in the city.
Quorn created 400 roles in Billingham County Durham; Euro Foods announced plans to create 200 jobs in Cwmbran, Wales and Arla created 700 jobs at the world’s largest fresh milk dairy in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
2 Sisters Food Group
2 Sisters Food Group axed jobs up and down the UK, cutting 350 roles at its Coupar Angus site in Scotland and putting 913 positions in doubt at its Corby site in Northamptonshire.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, food and drink sector skills council Improve warned that thousands of low-skilled food manufacturing jobs were likely to go unfilled as the industry focuses on filling high-skilled vacancies.
By 2020 the industry will need to fill 170,300 positions as workers retire or leave the industry, the Food and Drink Federation has claimed.
To view the latest jobs in UK food and drink manufacturing visit FoodManJobs.