Modelling the economic impact of job losses in the Car Industry

Australia once boasted a flourishing motor vehicle industry.

Over the years, in vast assembly plants across the country, countless thousands of Australians were employed building cars for Ford, Holden, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan, Renault, VW and Leyland, among others…

In fact, long before GM-Holden was created in 1931, Australian engineering firms (including Holden’s Motor Body Builders in Adelaide) built bodies for imported car chassis such as Dodge, Buick, Ford, Chevrolet, Studebaker, Overland, Hupmobile, Essex, Durant and Dort, and some European marques – from as far back as 1918.

But recently, we have all heard about the decline of the local manufacturing industry and the impending closure of the last vehicle assembly plants in Australia.

This week, an Australian Workplace Innovation & Social Research Centre (WISeR) commissioned study by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) was published, which forecasts direct impacts of the motor vehicle industry closures that will be felt in capital cities and regional centres across Australia in the coming years.

The organisation chosen to conduct this study, NIEIR, is well known to .id and .id clients, as they also provide all the local-area modelled economic data (economic micro-simulation model) for .id’s economy.id product.

The methodology used in this study is essentially the same as is employed in .id’s NIEIR-designed Economic Impact Assessment tool, also available at local council level in economy.id to model the impact of job losses (or gains) as well as the impact of increased (or decreased) industry turnover on a local economy.

Access the WISeR/NIEIR report

Watch the 4 Corners feature and interview

All economy.id clients now have access to the Economic Impact Assessment tool which can model these sort of negative impacts as well as positive impacts (gaining jobs and industries) in your economy. If your council doesn’t subscribe, talk to us today!