Saturday 12th December 2020
Analysis by expert Dudenhöffer
Corona crisis threatens jobs in the automotive industry
Fewer cars are sold worldwide during the corona pandemic. For China, experts nevertheless see high growth rates in the next few years, in Europe the recovery is worse. Because of the low demand, thousands of jobs could be lost in the German auto industry.
China is pushing ahead, Germany is behind: According to an analysis, the car market in the People's Republic is likely to develop best after the Corona crisis. Due to the expected growth and the successful containment of the pandemic, industry observer Ferdinand Dudenhöffer expects the situation for German manufacturers to stabilize, especially in the most important market in the Far East. At home, on the other hand, the pressure could increase further, according to the forecast. A persistently weak demand threatens to endanger further auto jobs in the Federal Republic.
The number of people directly employed in the key industry could therefore fall to 750,000 to 770,000 in this country by December 2021. At the end of 2019 there were around 823,000 employees. The calculations are dependent on a number of assumptions about consumer behavior, the progress of the corona infection process and the overall economic trend – these could still change and therefore leave room for interpretation. However, Dudenhöffer basically assumes that China will "once again be the locomotive for the world auto markets" in the next few years.
On the basis of the latest forecasts on the development of the gross domestic product, which is usually related to the demand for cars, the recovery process after the deep sales crisis in Europe could be "particularly difficult and protracted" – values below the level before the virus crisis are also expected for 2021 and 2022 . The consequences of the severe recession in 2020 are likely to continue here. In addition, the markets are partially saturated, so there are not many quick new purchases by consumers. It is different in China: "The country will reach the market level of 2018 again in 2022," believes Dudenhoeffer's team.
"Before the US President Donald Trump's tariff wars, that was the highest number of new cars sold per year to date." The experts assume increases of 8 percent in 2021 and a further 6.5 percent in 2022. For Germany 7 and then 2 percent were calculated, for the USA 5 percent twice in a row. Within Europe, Great Britain is likely to develop particularly weakly in the event of the expected hard Brexit: The country could be the only large car market to record a decline in 2021 (4 percent), and then a meager growth of 1 percent in 2022. For the global auto market as a whole, Dudenhöffer expects a recovery of 5.2 (2021) and 4.7 percent (2022).
. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) Auto industry (t) Ferdinand Dudenhöffer (t) Studies (t) Corona crisis (t) China