Australia's automotive manufacturing industry

This report presents the Productivity Commission's views on the costs and benefits of industry-specific assistance to the automotive manufacturing industry, in light of the structural change that will occur over the next few years as Ford, Holden and Toyota close their motor vehicle manufacturing plants in Australia. Key findings presented in the report include: retrenched employees face costs associated with job search and training, and some will have lower paid or less secure jobs once re-employed; loss of employment is particularly challenging for older people, or those with poor English proficiency or lower skill levels; while retrenched manufacturing employees may take longer on average to find re-employment than employees retrenched from other industries, within a year about two-thirds are likely to be re-employed on a full, part-time or casual basis; adjustment pressures are likely to be concentrated within particular regions, such as North Adelaide, parts of Melbourne and Geelong; some affected regions already have relatively high rates of unemployment and social disadvantage; governments should ensure the appropriate resourcing of the delivery of generally available welfare, training and employment services for all clients in regions placed under pressure by automotive manufacturing retrenchments; governments should consider ways to better target assistance to retrenched employees who are likely to encounter the greatest difficulties finding re-employment; regional adjustment funds, infrastructure and defence spending and industry support programs are costly and ineffective ways to facilitate workforce adjustment.

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