Potential to create up to 7,000 jobs over next decade: Savage

​Newry city and the wider district is entering a decade of economic opportunity, a local councillor has said.
By The Newsroom
Published 15th Sep 2023, 09:33 BST
Updated 15th Sep 2023, 11:05 BST

​Newry SDLP Councillor Michael Savage said the next 10 years can transform our city and district and believes a strong partnership approach can lead to unprecedented economic growth.

He made the comments after councillors received an economic forecast from Ulster University’s Eoin Magennis at Monday night’s Enterprise Regeneration and Tourism Committee Meeting.

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Cllr Savage said: “The next 10 years can be a decade of economic opportunity for our city and district and we have the potential to completely transform our economy if we take a strong collaborative and enthusiastic partnership approach.

“We have the potential to create an extra 4,500 to 7,000 jobs across the city and district according to the forecasts presented to us by Ulster University and we all have a responsibility to future generations to lay strong economic foundations across our city and district in the coming years.

“The Belfast Regional City Deal and the Dublin Belfast Economic Corridor are among the transformational opportunities available to us and we must work together to deliver their economic benefits.

"Other opportunities lie in supporting our strong indigenous businesses across retail, health, hospitality, construction and tech industries and we also have an opportunity to expand our horizons and look to other sectors where to date we are not as strong.

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"There are huge opportunities in renewables and robotics also and we must seize them.”

Colleges

Cllr Savage raised the importance of training and the role of our Further Education colleges in preparing our young people to meet the demands of an ever-changing employment landscape.

He added: “Mr Maginness from Ulster University made it clear that the jobs we will be training our young people for in 10 years time will be totally different and I believe some of them do not even exist at the moment so we need to expand our tech capabilities within our young workforce and SRC in Newry has a key role to play in driving that agenda.

“I was surprised to hear Mr Maginness state that although we have some fantastic tech companies in Newry such as First Derivatives and Statsports we have fewer jobs in this sector compared to other parts of the North.

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“The opportunity lies in upskilling existing employees in tech and also developing businesses that can develop niche micro Tech services and solutions as well as evolving technologies such as AI and I believe collaboration between SRC and DKIT in the years to come can lead to micro accreditation to upskill existing employees and provide training and skills opportunities for the future industries that can employ our young people.”

Cllr Savage also welcomed the value Ulster University has placed on our local hospital as being crucial to our city’s economy.

He said: “I was delighted to hear Mr McGuinness stress the importance of our local hospital to our economy. It is clear that Daisy Hill and the retention of as many services as possible at our local hospital is critical to our economic development over the next decade and that is why we must continue to fight to retain our hospital within any restructuring or our health service – not just to ensure that we provide the best health care possible in our locality for our people but that we also retain jobs within the health service locally that put wage packets into our city and district’s economy.

“We have a lot happening here in the coming years and everyone with their hands on the steering wheel to drive our local economy forward need to work together to deliver a city and district that I believe can achieve over 7,000 new jobs by 2033.”