25,000 new manufacturing jobs

kabayiri

Longer term I reckon we won't need as many people skilled in the art of making the ultimate war plane. The days of the $100m plus fighter jet will be numbered.

It's an increasingly unstable world though, and we could replace this with demand for cheaper drones, anti personnel devices, smaller tactical weapons better suited to fighting in guerilla conditions.

I saw a stat a while back which suggested for every £1 we spend in defence revenue, we earn £2 income. That sounds like a decent return in these harsher times.

So what comes first? Humanitarian principles or the economy?

notjustanyone

I work for an Aerospace company that is manufacturing parts for the F-35 and yes we did employ more people during 2011 and we've already taken on more people this year all due to this F-35 work and we are based in the North West of England

The same also applies for our larger facility based in the Midlands, they are actually taking even more people on than us

The build program for this plane is ongoing so I would expect the company to increase in work force size even more over the coming years too

This is just one company, there are hundreds of companies involved with the F-35 in some form or another, so realistically speaking I can see thousands of jobs being created

Unless you are involved in this, then you don't see what the potential is