After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs

[sunonmars]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/business/automaker-jobs-trump.html?smid=tw-share

After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs

DETROIT — After a prolonged recovery that culminated in two years of record sales, the American auto industry is slowing down, with fewer buyers in dealer showrooms and fewer workers on the factory floor.

Automakers said this week that sales dropped in June for a sixth consecutive month, falling by 3 percent from a year ago, a trend that analysts do not see letting up anytime soon. And as demand falls, there is less work in the nation’s auto-assembly plants — primarily those that build traditional passenger cars.

Last year, those plants hit a peak of 211,000 workers, a 55 percent increase since the depths of the recession in 2009. That figure has dropped by more than 2 percent so far this year, to 206,000 workers in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and could shrink further as sales continue to fall.

“There’s been a consistent reduction in plant output in the last six months, and what is ahead in the next six months could be pretty startling,” said Ron Harbour, an auto manufacturing expert at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

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But but we were told Trump would save everything and his business power had the midas touch...more like turn it to shit.

Nice to see them slip this out on 4th July when no-one would notice.

[nikibatts]

1. But, but the coal mines...

[gratuitous]

2. Even if the media don't report it, people know

For me, this indicates a growing sense of uncertainty about the future. Big-ticket purchases like automobiles go way down on people's list of priorities when they're not sure how things are going to be in six months, a year, or two years. Despite the efforts to normalize the whackaloon behavior of the administration, people aren't buying it, and the anxiety about the near future will show up in many ways like this.