The importance of selling just about everything you can name to the UK economy.

I mentioned in a post earlier this morning that until somebody sells something nobody makes anything. Here’s the rub.

According to Make UK 2.7 million people in the UK are involved in the manufacturing industry. That is to say well over 11 percent of the workforce are involved in one way or another in manufacturing.

If we do not sell cars, for example ( which is only a part of the manufacturing sector) then we stop making cars and 38,500 people are out of a job. That means these people cannot buy a car, a house, anything, they can barely scrape by buying the basics like food and clothes. In addition, those people will become a burden on the state costing millions in state benefits like unemployment and social security.

What’s more, if we lose our manufacturing industry then we lose our opportunity to export goods and bring much needed income from foreign sales into the UK. It is worth bearing in mind that manufacturing accounts for 45 percent of total exports, with a total value of 275 billion. To compound the problem, we would also lose inward investment, that is to say money coming into the country from abroad from foreign manufacturers wishing to take advantage of our skills and abilities to manufacture things. It is a sobering thought that manufacturing creates a not insignificant 13 plus percentage of all business investment.

But we don’t just manufacture, in fact the biggest sector of our economy is the service sector at 81 percent of total economic output. This sector, which is part of what is known as the tertiary sector, includes retail, banking, hotels, property, education and health, consulting, energy and the media to name but a few.

As with manufacturing, if we do not produce in these fields, then we have nothing to sell. If we lay off the manufacturing and service sectors, that is a whopping 90 percent plus of the entire workforce which is not producing anything and we have virtually nothing to sell to anybody.

To keep this whole thing going we need to make, or produce, and we need to sell. Pro-duction and sales go hand in hand, one without the other and it all falls apart. And that is why we need to get the doors open for business as soon as possible. And that is why I am delighted to hear that many sales outlets, like car dealerships, will be opening their doors at last on Monday the 1st of June. If we can get selling, then we can get making, and if we can get making then we can all get living. And so it is in all of out our interests to be open for business as soon as possible and sell, sell, sell.