The FT refutes the IOD job predictions citing new evidence from AMEC
A while back we published a critique of the Institute of Directors predictions that fracking would result in 74,000 jobs.
https://www.refracktion.com/index.php/dan-byles-and-the-74000-jobs-joke/
We argued that the basis of the calculations was childishly simplistic, and we asked how an MP like Dan Byles could put his name to supporting them. We were unable to get any sensible response from either the reports author, Corin Taylor, or from Mr Byles himself. When we pressed Mr Byles for a response on Twitter he blocked us.
What was particularly galling was that this figure was requoted ad nauseam by Byles and others, including even the Prime Minister.
Time moves on and so do people – like “Corin Taylor of the IoD, who now works for Centrica, which has formed a two-year drilling partnership with Cuadrilla, the shale gas company.”
Today the Financial Times publishes a report on new figures from AMEC which suggest a much more credible figure:
“AMEC predicted at a private meeting at the DECC offices in Whitehall that 15,900 to 24,300 full-time equivalent jobs – direct and indirect – would be created at “peak construction” by the shale gas industry.”
AMEC also pointed out that
“the jobs would typically be short term, at between four and nine years.” and “referred to concerns over job leakage, suggesting that at a previous fracking operation at Preese Hall, Lancashire, only 17 per cent of jobs had gone to local people.”
The FT article is scathing about the previous estimates and their use by the Prime Minister.
It is good to see some reality in the press report on fracking for a change!
I think we can now start referring to “the discredited IoD report”
