Spanish Auto Dealers Expect to Lose 30,000 Jobs in 2009

MADRID – The deteriorating new-vehicle market is taking its toll on automobile dealers here, which are expected to suffer significant job losses this year.

“We can’t avoid nearly 30,000 jobs getting destroyed in the Spanish auto dealer networks, which will reduce its whole workforce to no more than 150,000 people,” says Antonio Romero-Haupold, president of Faconauto, the federation of auto dealers associations.

Romero-Haupold blames the financial difficulties now plaguing retailers on auto makers forcing them to sell cars at too low a price.

“Auto brands were only occupied in getting sales volume, without considering auto dealers didn’t make profits,” he says, estimating 25% of cars were being sold at a loss.

Romero-Haupold is looking for the market decline to reach bottom by summer.

“But car sales will not increase, and the auto brands and their dealers will not come back to the same levels they were at,” he says.

Faconauto is one of 11 organizations that have asked the Spanish government for a “Magnum Emergency Plan” seeking €15 billion ($20 billion) in financial aid for the automotive industry.