Given recent news about declining car and truck sales, one can assume that selling cars and trucks is a dismal business with few openings for bright people in search of meaningful careers.

But like many assumptions, that one is wrong. According to a report released last week in Orlando at the 89th annual meeting of the National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents 20,000 car and truck dealerships, nearly all of the nation’s automotive retail outlets are scrambling to find qualified people to help run their businesses.

The head-hunt is on even at dealerships selling products made by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., which have spent much of the past year struggling to halt erosion of sales and market share.

The favored prescription for the recovery of those two companies has been an injection of new, better and more attractive cars and trucks. But now, with those vehicles on the way, GM and Ford dealers and executives say they need more qualified people to sell and service their products.

The employment report, based on a survey by Harris Interactive Inc., a market-research firm in Rochester, N.Y., estimates that 104,803 career job slots are available at the nation’s dealerships, with most of them in the South Atlantic region, which includes the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

In all, 24,647 auto dealership jobs are going begging in the South Atlantic, according to the survey by Harris, which is widely known for its publication of the Harris Poll.

“America’s franchised auto dealers are hanging out the help-wanted sign all across the country,” said Alan C. Starling, chairman of Auto Retailing Today, a coalition of major automotive manufacturers and dealer organizations that handles public relations for the retail side of the business.

But, partly because of the negative news of the financial problems of domestic car companies and a widespread belief that selling cars is a business for hustlers, many of those help-wanted appeals are being ignored, said Denise Patton-Pace, an ART spokeswoman.

“It’s difficult to educate people, to get them to understand that it is a strong industry with good jobs,” Patton-Pace said. “We keep running into parents who don’t want their children to get into the business because they have a bad image of it. But you can make a good living in this business.”

Nationally, according to the Harris survey, most of the available dealership jobs — 42,198 of them — are in sales. The second-largest number of vacancies is in service — 37,329. There are an estimated 7,120 administrative and clerical jobs open and another 6,903 slots available for managers. A miscellaneous category — information-technology specialists, fleet-sales experts, vehicle-preparation assistants and janitors — has 11,253 available dealership jobs, according to the Harris survey of 657 franchised new-vehicle dealers in the United States, conducted Jan. 5 to 14.

Selling cars is not easy. “It’s a people business,” said Tamara C. Darvish, vice president of the Darcars Automotive Group. “And we need people who understand how to deal with people, how to figure out what they need, and to follow-up with them” on sales and service calls, she said.

For many automotive salespeople, especially those working on commission, that means working long hours, six days a week. It can be grinding, but rewarding. Witness the legendary Freddie “Action” Jackson, a Washington area salesman who became a millionaire selling Lincoln and Mercedes-Benz automobiles.

Jackson, now comfortably retired, said he never saw himself as a salesman per se. “I always thought of myself as being in human relations,” he once told me. “I never tried to win customers. I always tried to win friends; and if that meant bringing a car to somebody’s office or home for him to take a look at, that’s what I did,” Jackson said.

The service jobs available in auto dealerships are not the same jobs open to the shade-tree mechanics of years past. Today’s cars and trucks are motorized computers, highly technological machines that require computer-literate and math-savvy technicians. Salaries range from about $25,000 to $70,000 a year, depending on a technician’s skill and experience.

Automobile manufacturers and their dealers sold 16.9 million new cars and trucks in the United States last year, continuing a six-year run of sales well above 16 million new vehicles. They sold more than 40 million used cars and trucks.

They are expected to have similar sales levels of cars and trucks in 2006, albeit a tad lower on the new-vehicle side, according to industry analysts.

That’s a lot of vehicles, a lot of business. Somebody has to handle all of those cars and trucks. The jobs are open.

[Source:Washingtonpost.com]

Automobile production is the largest manufacturing industry in the US, employing more than 1.3 million Americans in all 50 states, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM).

More than half of these workers are directly involved in production activities, and each day, they have the satisfaction of knowing that their work ultimately helps support another 12 million jobs around the country.

“When you look under the hood of today’s automobile, you’ll see goods from America’s greatest industries,” says Josephine Cooper, president and CEO of the AAM. “These include textiles from the Southeast, computer chips from California, aluminum manufactured in Iowa and air bags produced in Arizona. No other single industry is more linked to US manufacturing or generates more retail business and employment.”

The Financial Benefits

And perhaps no other single manufacturing occupation offers as many rewards, especially where pay is concerned. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) reports that production workers in the automotive manufacturing sector earned an average salary of $865 a week in 2000, which translates to an annual salary (assuming a 40-hour workweek) of about $45,000. And, the BLS adds, “at $1,093 per week, earnings of production workers in establishments that manufacture complete motor vehicles and car bodies were among the highest in the nation.”

The Most Popular Jobs

The most popular occupations in automobile production, in terms of numbers, include:

• Assemblers, fabricators, and metal and plastic workers (about 270,000), all of whom put together parts to create various subassemblies, which in turn are assembled into complete vehicles.
• Welding, soldering and brazing workers (about 45,000), who handle the welding and maintenance/repair duties that robots cannot.
• Inspectors and testers (about 29,000), who not only ensure that completed vehicles meet quality standards but also inspect raw materials and check various parts for defects.
• Supervisors and managers (also about 29,000), who oversee the work of others and coordinate manufacturing processes and production activities.

Where the Jobs Are

The vast majority of automobile production jobs are concentrated in Michigan, home to about 289,000 industry workers — a full 22 percent of the total automobile production workforce. Combined, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana account for half of the jobs in the field, according to the BLS, though there are also significant numbers of auto production workers in California, New York, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

What It Takes to Break In

You’ll almost certainly need at least a high school diploma to launch a career in this field. But as importantly, you’ll need strong communication, teamwork and computer skills if you want to succeed in a work environment that is becoming increasingly collaborative and technological, thanks to the daily pressures stemming from stiff competition in the industry.

Expect to receive the bulk of your training on the job, often through a formal apprenticeship program that can last anywhere from a few months to a few years. Such programs combine hands-on activities (under the supervision of experienced workers) with classroom training, either on site or at a nearby technical or community college.

Outlook

In September 2003, United Auto Workers — the primary labor union for automotive production professionals — reached four-year agreements with the Big Three automakers (General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group). The union was able to convince the companies not to pass on increasing health insurance costs to workers. But automakers gained more flexibility to close or sell auto production plants in order to better align supply and demand — a development that could eventually mean job losses for some auto production workers.

However, the BLS points out that employment in the motor vehicle and equipment manufacturing industry is expected to rise 9 percent between 2000 and 2010. Some of that increase will result from sheer growth. But, according to the BLS, “in addition to job openings due to growth, the need to replace workers who transfer to jobs in other industries or retire will also generate job openings.”

Opel, Mercedes and Volkswagen are planning to cut close to 29,000 jobs in Germany. But what at first looks like a crisis, is really just the result of bad management. While the layoffs hurt, the future may not be so bleak after all.

Germany’s political establishment this autumn has all the trappings of a suddenly capsized ship. A virtual electoral dead heat between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and challenger Angela Merkel has resulted in both claiming the right to become the next leader of Germany. No dry land has yet been sighted.

But while the political foundering may have come out of the blue, the truth is that the whole of Germany has long been sinking under the weight of its slow economic growth and, even more worrying, mass unemployment. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the captains of the ostensible rescue boats — the managers of the German auto manufacturers, which provide fully a seventh of all German jobs — have not only been slow to relieve the needy, but have managed to nearly sink their own vessels.

This didn’t always seem the case. Only two years ago, Chancellor Schröder confidently announced that the auto industry would be Germany’s economic saviour. Signs did, in fact, look good at the time; BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler-Chrysler and Porsche had recently committed to the creation of 10,000 new jobs — a seeming endorsement of Germany as a manufacturing location.

Since then, though, the picture has looked decidedly grimmer. This year the manufacturers had little in the way of good news to contribute to Schröder’s re-election campaign: Indeed, as last week’s International Motor Show came to a close, the most prominent announcements were not of job creations but of job losses. VW — even if it is planning to manufacture its new mini-SUV, the Marrakesh, in Germany — announced the impending layoff of 10,000 workers; Opel has likewise decided to cut 10,000 jobs; and Mercedes, after widespread speculation that 5,000 jobs were endangered, may — according to Wednesday’s Bild Zeitung — actually be preparing to get rid of 8,600 employees.

Many conclude that the hemorrhaging of jobs proves that, with globalization in full swing, Germany — with its high salaries and powerful unions — simply can’t compete as a site of manufacturing. The problem with that theory is that there are two prominent exceptions to the rule: namely, BMW and Porsche. Both companies have successfully negotiated Germany’s high-wage, generous-benefit-package landscape. And despite the rising price of oil, the sinking value of the US dollar and increasing global competition, both are planning on creating new jobs in Germany.

In actuality, while globalization certainly plays a role, the crisis faced by German auto manufacturers’ — including sinking profits and slow sales — is more a consequence of poor management.

Indeed, BMW and Porsche have always focused on the basics: making sure that their factories were efficient, that the quality of their products remained high and that their new models were well received. Meanwhile, Volkswagen in recent years has been following a different, altogether less disciplined strategy, the results of which were unveiled last week, when top managers announced the 10,000 German job cuts.

In many ways, the layoffs came as atonement for VW’s recent spending spree, during which it doled out billions of euros on a high-tech automobile theme park in Wolfsburg, a fancy new factory in Dresden and the buyouts of several struggling auto manufacturers (including Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti). Meanwhile, the company has spent far too much time and energy re-inventing the Passat and the new Golf. Engineers have shown an urge to carry such redesigns to extremes, rethinking every small detail and coming up with “improvements” — such as the new rear axle for the Golf — that only professional test drivers are able to notice.

This engineering-heavy strategy is in direct contradiction to the principles of industry-leading Toyota. The Japanese manufacturer wagered that the consumer would often not bother to ask the details of minute technological improvements under the hood, but was always likely to get excited about a new design. Toyota was content to recycle proven technology from previous models, but would never release a new line without carefully considering its styling. The result has been less expensive final products, content consumers and fewer quality slip-ups resulting from complex new technologies. VW on the other hand, opted for improvements that were noticeable for the average consumer in the sticker price — but nowhere else. Unsurprisingly, sinking profits were the result.

The company does, though, seem to be learning its lesson: CEO Wolfgang Bernhard recently announced that, in order to begin solving the problems, production costs for the new Marrakesh would have to be cut immediately by €2,000 per car. As of last week, that left €850 worth of fat to trim.

Which fat to trim, though? The prime target was labor costs — German VW workers are the highest paid in the industry. Bernhard talked about moving the new Marrakesh plant to Portugal, until an agreement was reached this week to use lower-cost workers who don’t fall within the in-house wage agreement.

Those successful negotiations, though, won’t save VW from other painful decisions in the near future. The company simply isn’t selling enough cars to justify the continued employment level of over 100,000 Germans. The top brass at the company has announced that productivity will have to increase by 6 percent over the next decade. When the euphemism is unpacked, the prognosis doesn’t look great for VW auto workers: year for year, VW will either have to sell 6 percent more cars, or let go 6 percent of its workforce.

Over at Mercedes, CEO Dieter Zetsche is facing similar problems, though for different reasons. Mercedes was once one of the auto world’s greatest success stories, cornering a sizable niche of the luxury market. The company lost its way, though, after purchasing the struggling American auto manufacturer, Chrysler. Focused on bringing its new possession up to speed, Mercedes diverted too much attention from its own line.

Zetsche has made clear that he recognizes the problems faced by Mercedes. “A lot of hard work is ahead of us,” he has emphasized. And he is likely to prescribe short term remedies similar to those put in effect by Bernhard at VW. In addition to the 8,600 jobs Mercedes is now eliminating, Zetsche also wants to focus on returning the line to the quality and attention to detail of years previous. Customers in the luxury market have high expectations and Mercedes needs to again begin the process of earning their trust.

The German public, though, continues to hold its breath. Although there are signs of slow improvement, the country’s economy continues to stagnate. And one of the reasons that it has not entirely run aground has been the traditional strength of its auto industry. Experts say, though, that there’s no reason to panic. The industry is still fundamentally strong, especially if the stalwarts, BMW and Porsche, smooth out their occasional hiccups, Porsche’s recent announcement — considered reckless by some — that it would purchase 20 percent of VW, is a troubling case in point.

And the possibility that VW’s and Mercedes’ problems are the result of poor executive decisions is oddly encouraging. With more competent leaders at the helm, the industry seems likely to return, if not to dominance, at least to respectability.