Foreign makers supply 1.3 million U.S. jobs, OSAT study says

Foreign automakers their U.S. plants, supply chains and dealer networks, have a much greater impact on the U.S. economy than generally has been surmised, according to a recently-announced study conducted by the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation (OSAT).

Titled "The Contribution of the International Auto Sector to the U.S. Economy," the study reports that nearly 1.3 million American jobs can be linked to the so called U.S.-International Auto Sector (USAIS) - the Japanese and German automakers that build and sell vehicles in the U.S., plus other European and Asian makers that purely sell them That means every job at a USAIS automaking facility, and in the company's U.S. dealer body, creates another two American "spin-of"jobs.

The six-month study, which focused only on jobs in the U.S. and not Canada or Mexico, was sponsored by the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), a lobbying group based in Arlington Va. The study's data was from 1996.

About 69,000 Americans are directly employed in manufacturing at USA'S plants, another 334,000 work in dealerships, and about 870,OOO,jobs at suppliers, service businesses, and those "induced" by the USAIS. In the manufacturing sector alone, each USAIS job generates 5.5 jobs (about 381,000), the study claims.

Andrew Card, president of the American Automobile Manufacturers' Assoc. (AAMA), a lobbying group for the U.S. Big Three, calls the OSAT data "extremely generous." Is a USAIS manufacturing job equal to one at the U.S. Big Three? "I don't think there's a dramatic difference to the economy," OSAT head Dave Cole tells AI "But it's about more than compensation and jobs. The USAIS created a new model in many ways, including education of workers, use of technology and processes, and even charitable contributions to communities."

Cole says that underlying the study is the fact that the economic impact of the entire auto industry has been under Adds Cole: The domestics still have three times the market presence here."

-Lindsay Brooke