News

German car industry exaggerates job figures

July 15, 2009

The German car industry’s mathematics has been found to be somewhat dubious. The industry umbrella group, VDA, has for several months enjoyed telling the world that every seventh job in Germany is dependent on the car industry.

But the economics magazine Capital has analysed the provenance of this figure, and finds that at the root of the calculation is an assumption that if
there were no German car industry there would be noone driving cars in Germany.

An economics institute RWI says it would be more accurate to say every 20th job in Germany is dependent on the car industry.

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