Latest news: North East receives manufacturing injection

Nissan is to invest £125m into a plant in Sunderland creating 2,000 new jobs. 08/03/2012

The Japanese car giants’ project is supported by a £9.3million government grant and is due to start in the summer of 2013.

This comes as good news for the manufacturing industry and graduates in particular after most leading companies cut jobs in the last year.

Business secretary Vince Cable described the news as a ‘clear vote of confidence’ in the UK’s manufacturing industry while a union leader claimed the announcement was a ‘ray of sunshine’.

The new jobs will be created both at the plant and at the smaller firms supplying the factory, with a record breaking 6,000 staff being employed in Sunderland.

Nissan produced more than 480,000 vehicles at the Sunderland plant last year, up 14% from 2010 and a new record for any single motorcar production plant within the UK.