R&D, Investments and Employment
In 2004 Germany also benefited sustainably from the investments of the automotive industry. The German automotive industry invests 11.9 billion euros, making it one of the major investors. Last year its proportion of industrial investment spending in Germany as a whole amounted to 25 per cent.
At the same time, the automotive sector has again proved to be the most important driving force behind innovation in industry. It has invested more heavily in Germany as a production location than other sectors of industry have done. Its expenditure on research and development, and on R&D personnel, has risen more than the average. Over one third of all R&D spending by German industry goes on vehicles, and 28 per cent of research workers and developers in industry are employed in the automotive sector. Also, one job in nine within the automotive industry is connected with innovations. According to the latest available data on patent statistics, German companies had over 3,300 European patents in 2003, clearly putting them in the lead.
While the processing industries in Germany have had to cut 13 per cent of jobs in the last decade, the automotive industry registered an increase of 21 per cent (+135,000 employees). The increase in employment was continued even in the difficult context of 2004, with a rise of 0.5 per cent to the current level of 777,300, while German industry as a whole continued to shed jobs, with a decrease of 2 per cent. In particular the automotive supply industry has proved to be a driving force for employment in Germany. Including those employed indirectly by the industry (sales and use of vehicles), a total of 5.3 million people in Germany depend on automobiles - which is one seventh of all those employed. At the same time, the German vehicle manufacturers alone have a global workforce of about 950,000, of which 40% are employed abroad. In total, the German automotive industry employs roughly 1.5 million people around the world.
With a glance at the employment breakdown, the trend towards even higher levels of qualification amongst the employees in the German automotive industry reflects the fact that Germany as a production location is the center of a worldwide production network, and above all a laboratory for research and development.
While the number of manual workers in the automotive industry rose by 14 per cent between 1994 and 2004, the number of white-collar workers went up by 40 per cent. Within this group the number of graduates from universities and colleges has risen more than the average. According to data from the Institute for Employment Research at the Federal Employment Services, the number of graduates employed in the automotive industry rose by 34.3 per cent in the period from 1999 to 2003. The automotive suppliers contributed more than average to this development by driving up the number of university and college graduates they employ by almost 40 per cent.
This trend shows that the availability of highly qualified, flexible staff is becoming an ever more important success factor for Germany as an automotive location.
