Autos can't live without China

mike smitka

I take part in an online discussion forum on Japan that occasionally strays into economics and business topics. One ongoing thread is the potential impact of erecting a "bamboo curtain" around China. A couple posts assert that realigning global production following the elimination of trade with China would not be a big deal. They seem to forget the havoc caused by 3/11 (the Japanese tsunami/earthquake), where damage to a mere two plants impeded global automotive production. One produced a dye essential for certain black/red paints. Red isn't all that popular in most markets, but surely the firms that used it for black lost sales to rival manufacturers who had a different pigment mix. [You don't substitute a different pigment without lots of testing – it's finicky, and the pigment layer may be only 19 microns deep. A different particle size or stickiness and you get paint that looks bad or worse, doesn't adhere. BMW owners won't tolerate peeling paint!] Then there was the Renasas plant in Sendai, which was already in the process of shutting down. Work on their new plant in Southeast Asia was accelerated, and round-the-clock teams worked as well to restart production in Japan. Fortunately there were pretty big inventories and the processor involved was used in more than one function. It did mean certain option packages weren't available, but by so China however would not be just two plants.

...without a global market, it would make much less sense for European, Japanese and Chinese suppliers to set up shop in Detroit...

Sugar tariffs

Mike Smitka
reposted from my Econ 102 Macro Principles blog

First, here are data to help you remember that import prices are not everything. Prices effectively triple between the wholesale price sugar farmers such as the Fanjul brothers receive, and the price you pay in a store. A big baker will pay something much closer to the wholesale than the retail price - if you buy by the train car (not the truckload!), delivery costs per pound are very low. The price gap between Brazilian and US sugar is about 40%. So even if the tariff was eliminated, the price would only fall by about 6¢ wholesale, and by about the same retail. How eager would consumers be to fight over 6¢ per pound? Even though I do some baking, it takes me over 1 year to use a 5 lb bag!

Prices	1980's Average	2013
Brazil Raw Sugar Price	-	14 cents
U.S. Raw Sugar Price	22.16 cents	20.46 cents
US Wholesale Refined Sugar Price	27.06 cents	27.22 cents
Grocery Store Refined Sugar Price	33.59 cents	64.32 cents

Automotive Employment Decomposed: New vs Used Car Dealers

Mike Smitka

...employments is centered in new car dealers and parts manufacturers...

Scott Wood of Carvana asked me about the increase in employment in automotive retail. With a bit of poking, I found that the Current Employment Survey (CES) run by the BLS provides fairly detailed breakdowns. Now I very strongly suspect that in the survey responses, employees at a new car dealer are not subdivided into those who work in service vs finance vs new sales vs used sales. All are likely classed by the main  business category of new car sales. Still, this provides a starting point. As it happens, while used car dealership employees have risen faster, the bulk of the increase in employment stems from the rise in new car dealership employees. While I'm at it, I also am posting (i) car vs parts/accessories/tires and (ii) assembly vs parts manufacturing. As expected – well, at least by me! – people who work in parts plants vastly outnumber those at "the" car companies. The latter get the political attention, but they're not the ones who "make" cars, they just put together the pieces.

Quick Update: US Labor Force Graphs, including autos

Mike Smitka

Here is an overview of (i) unemployment across the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery, highlighting U-6 "total pain" versus U-3 "headline unemployment." U-6 peaked at 17% of the labor force. It doesn't reflect those who dropped out but weren't "discouraged" or "marginally attached" by the BLS – currently, as per the graph below, that's still about 2% of prime-age workers, and 4% for age 20-24 workers. See the graph on the right for details.

I also calculated a "normal" level of total employment, using the relatively constant age-specific rates in the period prior to 2007, but adjusting the total for demographic changes, particularly "boomer" retirement. That's the graph immediately below. By that measure we're still a year away from "full" employment, assuming no slowdown. We have however added 12.2 million jobs, relative to population growth, since the trough of the Great Recession.

Finally there's the auto industry. On the retail side employment is at a historic high. However on the manufacturing side, despite robust domestic production, the industry employs about 130,000 fewer workers than at the onset of the Great Recession, or about 12% fewer. That is, one in eight jobs vanished. Why? – productivity. This reflects a long-term trend, it simply takes fewer people to turn out a vehicle today than in 2006, primarily due to more efficient parts production, because that's the sector where nearly 3 out of 4 workers in vehicle manufacturing are located.