Un-Italian games

@ninalanyon Meanwhile, it's never too late to start being nice to the people who very soon may be funding your pension and looking after you in your dotage . .

@Quimliqer Ditto in the UK: try finding anyone in the building trade who is not booked up so far ahead he is turning work away! This is not only by being more homes that need work done on them, but also fewer crafts-people.

I've a friend trying to retire from his one-man small-works business, who remarked recently he has seen far fewer sign-written vans about in the last few years. Some of that might be for security of course, but most electricians, plumbers, etc. still emblazon their vans with the name and trade.

@ArishMell Probably, but that is the responsibility of the private shipyard and perhaps the municipality that allowed the town to become dependent upon a single trade. Not fair to blame workers who are doing their job and paying their share.

@SunshineGirl I don't know who is blaming the workers. I'm not.

If young people don't want to work in a particular industry, you can't make them; though industries who don't offer much training - relying instead on people who already have the skills needed - are hardly likely to recruit them anyway.

Ship-building and similar large-scale, heavy steel fabricating still requires many highly-skilled welders; but a lot of manufacturing needs far fewer people than in the past, too, for the same volume of work in the same or less time. And that includes the factories making the components for the ships, due to modern engineering-trade techniques.

I doubt the municipality allowed that state of affairs, but we don't know to what extent it attracted other businesses.

Something like a major shipyard certainly would, both directly serving it and serving the shipyard employees, but there are many factors governing why any trade would favour a particular town.

Worse, if the main employer moves away or closes there is no guarantee others would take its place to anything like the same extent however much the locals try to attract them.

One of the most deprived areas of England is Cornwall - oh all pretty-pretty for the second-homes set and holiday-rental trade; but they have not replaced the near-total loss of the mining, the Camborne School of Mines, and a major mining-equipment builder (Atlas-Copco?). Cornwall County Council had not "allowed" the area to exist just on mining, plus farming, fishing and now tourism; but it is very hard to attract new, worthwhile industry there. Then if someone does appear, it will probably find it hard to recruit locally because the local young people will have moved away to seek work and hopefully homes.

I don't know if this is similar in Montfalcone - possibly not if it is still building ships - but it does show that really, councils cannot direct their area's trade. Businesses either want to be there, or not, according to what works for them. Local people either want to work in those businesses, or they want something perhaps more attractive to them - or have little choice. Either way, there is little a local or area council can do about it.

@22Michelle Martin McGuinness, unofficial.spokesmen for the IRA during The Troubles, cautioned about negotiating with a people whose national pastime lasts for five days.