The U.S. Automotive Industry: National and State Trends in Manufacturing Employment

[Excerpt] The U.S. motor vehicle manufacturing industry\u27 employs 880,000 workers, or approximately 6.6% of the U.S. manufacturing workforce, including those who work in the large motor vehicle parts manufacturing sector, as well as those who assemble motor vehicles. Since the beginning of the decade, the nation\u27s automotive manufacturing sector has eliminated more than 435,000 automotive manufacturing jobs (or an amount equal to about 3.3% of all manufacturing jobs in 2008). The employment level first dipped below one million in 2007 and fell to 880,000 workers last year. With the restructuring and bankruptcy of Chrysler and General Motors, and the ongoing recession in the auto sector, employment in the nation\u27s automotive manufacturing industry will most likely shrink in 2009 and 2010 as additional assembly, powertrain, and auto parts plants close. This report provides an analysis of automotive manufacturing employment, with a focus on national and state trends. The 111th Congress continues to be heavily engaged in oversight and legislative proposals in response to the unprecedented crisis of the domestic motor vehicle manufacturing industry. The Detroit-based automotive manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) have suffered a series of setbacks in recent years with their share of the domestic market dropping from 64.5% in 2001 to 47.5% in 2008. As a consequence, the traditional auto states of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have been—and will continue to be—heavily impacted by the changes taking place in the automotive sector. Together, there are now 152,000 fewer automotive manufacturing jobs in these three states than there were five years ago. Recent automotive sales and production data indicate the enormous changes taking place in today\u27s motor vehicle manufacturing sector. For instance, automotive sales fell to 13.2 million units in 2008, down by 18% from 2007, and forecasts indicate U.S. consumers are expected to purchase fewer than 10 million cars and light trucks in 2009. There has also been a loss of market share by the Detroit 3 producers which has created gains for foreign-owned domestic manufacturers and imports. Some recent Detroit 3 automotive manufacturing employment losses are partially offset by new investments by foreign-owned manufacturers in the United States as they have open, or will open, new plants in states like Indiana, Georgia, and Tennessee. Many Members of Congress, and especially those members from the traditional auto belt states of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, have expressed their concerns about lost jobs in the automotive manufacturing sector. With the sale of GM assets to the U.S. government and Chrysler assets to Fiat, two new companies have emerged that will be substantially smaller than the companies that went into bankruptcy. As a consequence, the total level of motor vehicle manufacturing employment will be reduced, especially in locales where facilities have closed. The most recent automotive manufacturing employment data indicate that 42% of all persons in the industry work in one of the three traditional auto belt states, each of which at present employs more than 100,000 persons in the industry. Michigan alone has accounted for 40% of the net job loss in the industry since 2003. Losses in Ohio and Indiana have been less severe, offset somewhat by foreign investment. Alabama, with fewer total automotive manufacturing employees, has been the big job gainer, adding over 12,000 auto manufacturing jobs since 2003. Texas, now the eighth largest state by automotive employment, gained 5,200 jobs between 2003 and 2008. Auto industry states in the South including Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee have lost jobs in recent years, but far fewer than in the traditional auto belt states

A New Transatlantic Initiative? U.S.-EU Economic Relations in the Mid-1990s. CRS Report for Congress, September 15, 1995

A number of proposals for a new transatlantic trade and investment initiative between the United States and the European Union (EU) have been floated in recent months. Closer ties, some believe, would lead to a better transatlantic relationship. The United States Government and the European Commission are conducting independent studies to assess the feasibility of establishing a free trade area or a "transatlantic economic space." Both sides may agree, at a December 1995 summit, to intensify the U.S.-EU dialogue. Proponents of a new transatlantic initiative argue that the United States and the European Union run a risk of drifting apart in the absence of the unifying threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Countering the view that there is a "special relationship" between the United States and the European Union are those, like MIT economics professor Lester Thurow, who argue that in the post-Cold War world, the United States and European Union are political and economic rivals engaged in a battle "to determine who owns the twenty-first century.

European Union-U.S. economic and trade initiatives. CRS Report for Congress, March 19, 1996

The United States and the European Union are now engaged in a new initiative aimed at strengthening transatlantic economic and political cooperation. The initiative has a government component (New Transatlantic Agenda -- NTA) and a private sector component (the Transatlantic Business Dialogue -- TABD). Should this transatlantic initiative lead to new trade agreements, the Administration will have to seek congressional approval for such agreements. The scope of agreements under the New Transatlantic Agenda could transcend traditional trade issues, extending to cover such "new" trade (or beyond-the-border) issues as environment and labor, regulatory systems, and competition policy

Platonism, Adaptivism, and Illusion in UN Reform

In July 2003, on the heels of the American invasion of Iraq, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan held an extraordinary press conference. At it, he wondered aloud whether the institutions and methods we are accustomed to are really adequate to deal with all the stresses of the last couple of years. He warned that we are living through a crisis of the international system. What are the rules? he asked. Four months later he proceeded to appoint a group, the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, to recommend ways of strengthening the United Nations so it can provide collective security for all in the twenty-first century. The High-Level Panel ( Panel ) consisted of former governmental officials and in pursuing its task met at various locations around the world. Hopes ran high that its ideas would breathe new life into an organization that needed, in Annan\u27s words, radical change. In December 2004 it issued its report, which has since become the focal point of efforts at UN reform. For a Burkean pragmatist with any sense of institutional conservation, making the most of the United Nations is a useful project. Massive amounts of capital-financial and otherwise-have been invested in the organization over the past sixty years. To the extent possible, humanity should profit from its investment. Even if the objective were merely to advance individual states\u27 national interests, the UN might be a useful tool for doing so. In any event, it is hard to fault an organization that recognizes the need to reform itself, especially one that has borne the hopes of humanity so heavily as has the United Nations. [CONT