Car industry in driver’s seat
Nearly 167,000 new auto jobs likely by end of 2015
WASHINGTON – After a near collapse at the height of the recession, the streamlined U.S. auto industry defied the odds and outperformed the greater economy this year with solid sales increases, job growth and product innovations.
Credit better quality and pent-up consumer demand for the industry’s slow, steady improvement. Customers who were unwilling to gamble on automobile purchases during the recession are coming back to showrooms because the average age of vehicles on U.S. roads is more than 10 years – the highest ever.
U.S. car buyers also are getting comfortable with making large purchases in the volatile economy, experts say.
“And that’s a big behavioral change from what we saw in ’08 and ’09. That’s good for the industry,” said Jesse Toprak, the chief industry analyst for TrueCar.com, an auto-pricing website.
After selling roughly 11.8 million cars and trucks last year, U.S. vehicle sales to businesses and consumers are expected to hit nearly 12.8 million in 2011, Toprak said. That’s up from 10.6 million at the height of the recession in 2009.
Through November, new-vehicle sales had logged six straight months of year-over-year gains. That should continue in December, when 1.2 million vehicles are likely to be sold, Toprak said.
Those numbers are well off their pre-recession levels, which topped 16 million vehicles a year. But the industry’s plodding recovery in the past two years has helped stabilize the greater U.S. economy.
U.S. and foreign automakers are poised to add nearly 167,000 U.S. jobs by the end of 2015, according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. That breaks down to 30,000 hourly and salaried workers at the Big Three U.S. automakers, 17,000 jobs at foreign automakers and about 120,000 auto-supply sector jobs.
“The industry has pretty much hired back just about everybody from the automotive side that had been laid off,” said Aaron Bragman, senior analyst at IHS Automotive in Northville, Mich.
“You’ve got to give the automakers some credit here,” Toprak said. “The new products that have come out of virtually every single automaker in the last year or two have been the best that consumers were ever offered. When you have great product, it fuels buying.”