Gloom or doom?

With no end in sight to the current global economic turmoil, E&T looks at the implications for the engineering and technology sector. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, says that Britain is facing its worst financial crisis in 60 years. No question, today's global financial crisis has the makings of a perfect storm; chronically high borrowing costs, stubborn inflation, a falling dollar, reduced consumer demand and -just possibly a very nasty recession. Beyond the economics, the relevant question for E&T readers is how will it most likely affect the engineering and technology industries in the UK and in the world in general? Is this business as usual, or is a media-hyped financial meltdown in the offing? To answer such questions, it's useful to try and assess exactly how big the UK technology sector is. According to trade association Intellect, it has over one million employees, and accounts for 10 per cent of GDP. This includes digital consumer electronics, IT equipment, software, IT services, telecom end-user equipment, network equipment and telecom carrier services.