Repercussions across metalworking
As households and company fleets cut or delay purchases of vehicles, knock-on effects for workers in other metalworking industries have occurred. Steel and aluminium, mechanical engineering, electronics, and metal mining sectors have all seen falling demand from the global downturn, with both manual and non-manual workers affected.
- Global steel output has declined sharply from weakness in automotive, construction and household durable goods sectors. Orders from the motor vehicle industry account for about 13 per cent of global finished steel output with about two tons of steel on average used per motor vehicle built.
- Machine tools and bearings were among the first mechanical engineering subsectors affected. The German-based mechanical engineering association VDMA reports that 30 per cent of Germany’s machine tool production is for the automobile industry including component suppliers, citing the auto slump as a significant factor behind declining tool orders.
- In electronics, companies such as Freescale, the leading supplier of semiconductors to the motor sector, and Infineon, Europe’s largest, have cut working hours in automotive-related activities.
- For metals, companies in South Africa have announced retrenchments in the mining of platinum, an essential material in automotive catalysts used for vehicle emission control technologies.
Industrial inter-connections across branches of this kind and magnitude indicate the extent to which motor vehicle production has cascading effects across metalworking branches highlighting the sector’s strategic position in manufacturing.
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