1981: Look back to West Lancashire's first 'credit crunch'

By Gemma Jaleel on Jan 15, 09 09:00 AM

Workers at the union meeting to disucss redundancies at Universal Bulk
WITH 2009 dawning to the woes of the credit crunch and fears over job losses, this week's memories harks back to a similar time of high unemployment.

Early in 1981 the jobless rate for Ormskirk was 17.2% of the working population, well above the national figure of 10%. At the time there were only 22 vacancies in the Ormskirk unemployment office.

More than 50 people were made redundant at Universal Bulk Handling on Orrell Lane, Burscough. The news came as a blow to workers as the company had only announced a £150,000 order a few weeks before.

Universal Bulk Handling made tanks for transporting foodstuff and liquids.

Shop floor staff held a mass meeting with union leaders and those that were keeping their jobs pledged not to do the work of people losing out.

A further seven jobs were to go at Asmer's Church Street garden shop, which would have celebrated its centenary four years later.

The phrase "credit crunch" had not been invented in 1981 but there were plenty of people falling into poverty.

Homelessness was on the increase and the number of people on the council's housing waiting list had also gone up.

Latest figures showed the number of people on the housing list had risen from 555 to 884.

At the same time the amount of money available to the council for house building programmes had gone down from £2 million in 1979 to £1.2m for the financial year 1981-82.