Blue Collar vs No Collar

June 1, 2009 5:01 PM

Are there more car salespeople than automobile manufacturing people in the United States?

With the move to a "service industry based economy" in America and GM's bankruptcy declaration today - I was struck with the question of the number of middlemen in the American auto industry compared to the number of manufacturing jobs.

Any tips or suggestions on where to look for this kind of information would be helpful. I assume the commerce department keeps figures on this sort of thing - but this might not even be the right question to ask...

posted by cinemafiend to work & money (5 comments total)

The Bureau of Labor Statisics is your friend

Total Auto Salespeople + Auto Parts stores about 165k. Data Here

Auto repair Techs 650k. Body Repair 150k

Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing 580k. Body and Trailer Assembly are 157k. Auto Assembly is 209k

All data is from that same survey.

So pretty similar in size. But that actually doesn't answer your question. You would need to know how those numbers would have split out in 1975 of something. BLS will have that as well but you'll have to do your own digging.
posted by JPD at 5:17 PM on June 1

Also you can replace an assembler with capital (buy a robot) you can't replace a service tech or a sales guy with capital - so your analysis is flawed from the start.
posted by JPD at 5:19 PM on June 1

You can get even more detailed info here. Specifically, there's a breakdown of each industry into occupational categories in this spreadsheet.

Let's count the industry classifications of Motor Vehicle Manufacturing (336100), Motor Vehicle Body and Trailer Manufacturing (336200), and Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing (336300) as "Manufacturing". And let's count Automobile Dealers (441100) and Automotive Parts, Accessories, and Tire Stores (441300) as "Middlemen".

Highlights (all data from the May 2008 release):

Total employment in "Manufacturing" = 942k (this jibes with JPD's numbers).
Employment in Production occupations = 617k
Employment in Architecture and engineering occupations = 60k

Total employment in "Middlemen" industry = 1.7 MM
Employment in Sales and related occupations = 660k
Employment in Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations = 468k
Employment in Office and administrative support occupations = 233k

If you count Motor Vehicle and Motor Vehicle Parts and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers (423100) as "Middlemen", you get the total up to 2.0MM, 740k of which are in sales and 517k in Installation, etc..., 308k in Office, etc..., and 311k in Transportation and material moving occupations.

Note that I've completely left out Automotive Equipment Rental and Leasing (532100) and Automotive Repair and Maintenance (811100). Didn't know how those fit into your scheme.
posted by mhum at 5:59 PM on June 1

Also, note that JPD's number for salespeople only includes "Parts salespersons", which is a subset of all "Sales and related occupations". It looks like the bulk of the sales personnel at auto dealers are classified as "Retail salespersons".
posted by mhum at 6:04 PM on June 1

BTW - this is a totallly googleable answer

And mhum and I linked to the same site. He's just better at reading then I.
posted by JPD at 4:56 AM on June 2