Study predicts job losses in car industry due to electrification

According to a new study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), electrifying cars will reduce need for workers in the car industry, including external suppliers to car manufacturers. The researchers looked at three different scenarios. In the most conservative one, they assumed a market share of 25 percent for electric vehicles and 15 percent plug-in-hybrid cars by 2030. This implied around 23,000 of roughly 210,000 jobs in drive train technology lost purely due to the technological shift, and a further 53,000 as a result of a general increase in productivity. These figures accounted for the 25,000 jobs created in battery and electric technology, an IAO press release said.
Jörg Hofmann, chairman of workers’ union IG Metall said these findings shouldn’t prompt fearmongering. “Politicians now have to flank the necessary structural change in the automobile industry with target-oriented industrial and job policies,” Hofmann said.

Read the IAO press release in German here. The complete study is due to be published at the end of June.

Read a CLEW dossier on the Energiewende and German car makers here.