The automobile quintupled profits in Spain in 2021 but reduced its employment by 11% | Companies

The microchip crisis has hit hard in the activity of car factories in Spain, but not in the income statements of automobile companies. According to the annual report of the National Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Handy) published this Wednesday, car producers more than quintupled their profits in Spain in 2021, to 1,011 million euros432.7% more than the 189.8 million registered in 2020. In that year, the engine had suffered a sharp profit cut of 78.8% due to the pandemic.

This big increase in profits was not matched by new car registrations, which rose just 1% last year to just over 859,477 cars. Turnover, for its part, rose by the same percentage, 1%, to 60,908 million. The reason for this discrepancy between sales and profits is that carmakers, faced with a shortage of components, prioritized the sale of their premium brands and models that bring them greater benefits than cars and firms with more affordable prices.

This situation allowed, for example, the Volkswagen group will earn 74.8% more worldwide in 2021, up to 15,428 million, despite the fact that their registrations fell by 4.5%. For its part, Stellantis, the largest producer in Spain with three plants, tripled its profits to 13,354 million worldwide last year.

Employment fell by 11.3% in Spain

According to the data offered by Anfac, at the end of 2021, the sector employed 61,704 people in our country, 11.3% less than the 69,580 direct jobs it maintained at the end of 2020. “The decrease is motivated by the decrease of production, with factories that have stopped doing several shifts”, has indicated the general director of Anfac, José López-Tafall. This, he explained, did not occur in 2020, since at that time the ERTE allowed jobs not to be destroyed and, once the confinement was over, the activity was quickly resumed since there was no shortage of chips, as there was in 2021.

Total, the engine contributes to the Spanish economy 7.7% of GDP and 9% of employment if both direct and indirect jobs are taken into account. As to tax collection, rose 15.9% in 2021up to 34,148 million.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.