By contrast an Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) survey showed healthy growth in the manufacturing sector.
The Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) also welcomed the decision to keep rates on hold.
Electronics companies, which last year recorded 17% growth, are set to report 2.4% expansion this year, the EEF said.
The EEF earlier this year predicted a relatively rosy outlook, with sector growth in the first three months running at 6%.
The EEF study is the latest in a number of surveys showing how final salary pension schemes are gradually being phased out.
The EEF manufacturers' organisation said the rises struck a delicate balance between the need for pay increases and the limitations employers faced in awarding rises.
As leader of the now-defunct Clem Snide, Eef Barzelay took flak from critics for weaving smart-alecky wordplay and pop-culture references into his keenly observational songs.
The EEF engineering employers group said that the 1.1% growth in manufacturing activity during the quarter confirmed that a rebalancing of the economy was slowly taking hold.
President of the EEF, Paul Lester, told business and political leaders in a speech in London on Monday that the country's future would depend upon technical and specialist expertise.
The British Chambers of Commerce said it "fully supported" the Bank's decision, while the manufacturers' organisation, the EEF, said the decision was expected and "likely to be maintained in the short term".
The group's one constant has been the unpredictable and inspired songwriting of Israeli-born, New Jersey-raised, Nashville-based Eef Barzelay, who seems to look at every issue sideways and winds up encountering real epiphanies.
In a speech this morning to the manufacturers' lobby group, the EEF, Mr Miliband will focus on attacking the government for wasting what resources it does have and on non-financial forms of industrial support.
"The good news is that manufacturing clocked up a fifth straight rise, whilst cost pressures have eased a little and some firms are still recruiting, " said Lee Hopley, chief economist at EEF, the manufacturers' organisation.
The EEF also urged the government to deal with the UK's "woeful" levels of research and development investment, which remain lower than levels in the US and all but one member of the European Union.
In a speech to the manufacturers organisations EEF, shadow chancellor Ed Balls committed Labour to studying "with great care" Sir George's proposals and he urged the government to adopt the plans "before we get the chance".
BBC: UK business too focused on short term, says Labour report
"At a time of falling stock market returns and increasing life expectancy, companies are unfortunately facing little choice but to reluctantly close their final salary schemes, " said the EEF's deputy director of employment policy David Yeandle.
"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven, " the EEF said.
The manufacturers' organisation, the EEF, said that the Bank's decision to act now, before the third-quarter estimates of GDP and its latest inflation forecast were released, "would indicate that members believed immediate action was warranted in order to head off a deteriorating growth outlook".
"The trade statistics continue to provide few reasons for optimism in the short term, with the large drop in goods exports to parts of the eurozone over the past year underlining the ongoing impact of the crisis, " said Lee Hopley, an economist at manufacturers group EEF.
"However, the planned VAT rise will place additional pressure on already elevated inflation expectations and next month's Inflation Report will need to consider the risks of relying on spare capacity in the economy to bring down inflation and expectations, " said Lee Hopley, the EEF's chief economist.
应用推荐