M3: Compare areas of growth of decline in the primary, secondary and tertiary classification of business activity
Primary Sector
The Decline of the UK Coal Industry
At its peak, the British coal industry employed over a million men, and was one of the most important industries in the UK. In 1979, 130 million tons of coal was being produced annually from 170 underground mines, but by 2010 the three remaining mines produced only 17 million tons. Employment in the coal industry has decline from 1.2 million in 1920 to 6,000 today. This is the most suggestive data shows range of the decline.
Reasons for the Decline in the UK Coal industry:
Coal is cheaper to import from abroad. For example, UK power stations import considerable amounts of coal from Argentina.
New Sources of Energy: north sea gas and oil, nuclear power
Decline in demand for coal: steam power vanished in place of diesel and electric (e.g railways), people switched to more modern forms of central heating.
Global Warming and the need to reduce CO2 emissions, coal is a declining industry because of the need to replace with greener sources of power.
Political issues. In the UK the the coal industry had the most powerful unions. This was not support competitive the UK coal industry. There were lot of strikes, higher wages and unit costs of production. There was hard to implement new working practises to improve productivity. In the 1984/85 striking miners were defeated by the Mrs Thatcher's government and it was end of industry.
Secondary sector
Growth of UK Food and drink sector
Food and drink is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector with a turnover of over £90 billion. The industry employs up to 400,000 workers. This represents 15 per cent of the overall manufacturing workforce in the UK.
This strong and successful sector is still growing. The turnover was an increase of 7.8% on 2010. The industry has increased the productivity of its labour force over the...