How many times have you heard a politician crow that the push for electric vehicles will create jobs? To hear the left (and some on the right) talk, not only will electric cars save the planet, but they’ll put a chicken in every pot and a charging station in every garage.
“The President’s economic plan has generated an American, electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing boom that is creating new economic opportunity and tens of thousands of good-paying and union jobs across the country,” the White House said in a statement in Sept. 2022.
One month later, the White House bragged that its massive emphasis on EVs “will improve America’s energy independence, strengthen national security, support good-paying jobs across battery supply chains, and lower costs for working families.”
Plug-in America reported in 2022 that “This transition has the potential to add jobs, stimulate local economies, and drive innovation in a segment previously at risk of stagnation, making EVs a win-win-win for consumers, the economy, and our planet.”
The think tank Economic Policy Institute said in a 2021 report that if EVs “rise to 50% of domestic auto sales by 2030, 150,000 jobs in the auto industry could be created with policy measures to shore up U.S. market share and domestic content in BEV production.” That’s a big “if,” and the report goes on to say that this job creation hinges on the manufacturing of vehicles, batteries, and other parts taking place in the United States.
That’s all well and good, but how does what Ford is doing in Europe, where the EV push is even stronger, bode for our automotive industry?
Automotive News reports, “Ford plans to cut 3,800 product development and administration jobs in Europe in the next three years, the company said, citing rising costs and the need for a leaner structure as it pivots production to electric vehicles.”
“The reductions amount to about 11 percent of the automaker’s European workforce, with Germany and the UK hardest hit,” the report continues.
Related: Buttigieg Says the Solution to High Gas Prices Is Simple: Just Buy an EV
Ford will continue to retain 3,400 employees, but the cuts have come because the auto giant is relying on American technology and adapting it to the European market.
“There is significantly less work to be done on drivetrains moving out of combustion engines. We are moving into a world with fewer global platforms where less engineering work is necessary. This is why we have to make the adjustments,” Martin Sander, a Ford executive in Europe, said.
One of the factors that play into the switch to EVs and whether that switch will actually create jobs is that EV manufacturing is somewhat less labor-intensive.
“Looming over the transition to electric vehicles is the fact that they have substantially fewer moving parts than gasoline-powered ones and require less labor to manufacture — about 30 percent less,” reported the New York Times in 2021. The report cites stats from Ford that date back to 2017, long before this major push toward EVs took place.
Of course, it might be an apples-to-oranges comparison to think about what Ford is doing in Europe, but it’s hard not to see the news and believe that it flies in the face of the repeated promises that transitioning to EVs will bring jobs upon jobs to the workforce.
“We have, after all, been told that decarbonization of the economy is going to generate lots of new jobs,” wrote National Review‘s Andrew Stuttaford last year. “I’m not convinced, particularly, as I noted last week, when it comes to net job creation. To be sure, the transition away from greenhouse gases ought to create quite a large number of new jobs for regulators, lawyers, and all the rest, and maybe even some well-paid blue-collar jobs too, but it will also cost jobs.”
It’s tempting to believe that Ford’s European layoffs are bearing that out.
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