The British government in the 1990s laid off 56,000 workers in the defense sector, and 80% of these people became unable to find new jobs in the military-industrial complex. Years later, the UK now has a chronic shortage of people to manufacture military equipment and defense products because of that decision.
The most telling example here is the construction of nuclear submarines, which is lagging behind schedule due in part to a lack of personnel. Instead of 13,000 people previously involved, only 3,000 people do it nowadays, as highlighted in a commentary from British MP Calvin Bailey for War on the Rocks.
Read more: UK Laid the Keel of Its Largest Submarine-to-Be, the HMS Dreadnought
Back in the 1990s, soon after the end of the Cold War, the United Kingdom government decided that now the defense industry would switch to exclusively commercial gears. So it became "economically inexpedient" to spend budget on long-term technological research, for example, on improving materials for the semiconductors production carried out at the time by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, now defunct.
Theoretically, such research could also benefit civilian businesses, but considerations of budget rationalization won out, and many R&D institutions have been cut over the past three decades. However, the practice of outsourcing technological developments to private enterprises did not lead to the expected economical gain.
At the same time, it led to a "skill gap" between new outsourced workers and seasoned military specialists, and has left the industry without essential personnel with scientific, engineering, mathematical, and technological knowledge as the older generation retires.
Delegation of important developmental functions to private contractors also affected the British Armed Forces, the logistics in particular where people find jobs at Amazon more compelling. This leaves the Army chronically struggling to recruit personnel.
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