EON Cuts Staff While Jeremy Corbyn Promotes Manufacturing Jobs

The Times reports that big six energy firm Eon is set to cut around 500 jobs, as it prepares for the introduction of a cap on energy prices.

A spokesman for the company, which employs 9,400 people in the UK, said "Clearly we and others across the energy industry need to adapt in order to compete in this changing market environment and we have been in conversations with our trade unions about how we might respond." A Unite union representative said it was "working constructively" with Eon, adding that they understood the redundancies would be on a voluntary basis.

Earlier this year, the Government announced plans to apply limits to how much companies can increase fees on standard variable tariffs. At the time, trade body Energy UK said that "The risk of unintended consequences around caps is serious. What we have to do is, working with Ofgem and the government, make sure the cap has sufficient headroom to allow competition to continue." Last year, Eon made over £170m in profits before tax on its household supply business.

Image: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday called for a rebalancing of the economy towards manufacturing, in a speech in Birmingham.Corbyn criticised the approach of relying "on cheap labour abroad to produce imports", while contending that successive governments have ignored manufacturing in favour of the finance sector, and City of London.

In the speech, Jeremy Corbyn went on to castigate what he described as the "racket" of public sector outsourcing, criticising the allocation of contracts to firms overseas. The leader of the opposition cited the decision to award a contract for manufacturing new passports to Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto in March. The Home Office said the allocation would save the taxpayer around £120m.

Image: Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto.

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