Research studies released by the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers Unions have predicted that there will be 143,000 fewer workers in the domestic car industry in 2005 compared with 2000, if Japanese car sales continue to slump and if car and car parts makers shift more production overseas, writes Swineetha Dias Wickramanayake.
The projection, made jointly with Mitsubishi Research Institute Ltd., also of Japan, assumes that domestic car makers built about 10.14 million units in 2000 with a workforce of 791,600, of whom 645,200 were employed by component suppliers.
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If production shrinks to nine million units in 2005, the workforce will decrease by up to 143,000 workers, 116,500 of whom will come from parts manufacturers, resulting in 648,600 workers in the industry, said the union.
Even if domestic output remains flat from 2000 at about 10 million units, the introduction of increasingly efficient automation to raise production efficiency will probably result in a decline of 79,900 workers, 66,800 of whom will be from parts firms, the confederation said.
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