A crane manufacturer is creating jobs after winning £1.65 million of orders over the past two months.

Morris Material Handling, in North Road, Loughborough, is looking for 10 skilled shopfloor staff after a recent upturn in sales.

Bosses say that things are looking brighter after the firm had been hit by the global economic slowdown over the past two years.

Morris has secured contracts worth £750,000 with an aerospace manufacturer and a company involved in airport construction, orders worth £500,000 with two waste-management companies and a contract worth £400,000 with firms involved in wind turbine component manufacturing.



SKILLS: A worker welds parts for one of the cranes at Morris Material Handling

Mike Maddock, the company's managing director, said: "In the last few months, things have got better in terms of sales.

"But margins are still very tight at the moment due to stiff competition from both the UK and overseas."

He said that some of the 10 jobs were for posts left unfilled for some time due to natural wastage and which had been kept vacant due to the economic slowdown.

The firm employs 200 people in Loughborough, another 100 at service and maintenance depots across the UK and another 100 at factories in Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Singapore. In 2001, Morris Material Handling changed ownership after a management buy-out led by Mr Maddock when its American parent company got into financial difficulties.

Mr Maddock said: "These contract wins are just a snapshot of what we do. We can supply a wide range of industries and we go where we find the business."

The Engineering Employers' Federation's (EEF) latest quarterly survey said that for the first time in more than two years more companies reported output and orders expanding rather than declining.

Nigel Chubb, chief executive of the Leicestershire-based East Midlands branch of EEF, said: "Evidence shows that things are starting to pick up, albeit from a low base.

"We are finding that the size of orders being won has improved. It is a brighter position than we have seen for some time in engineering."

Reproduced by kind permission of The Leicester Mercury.
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