So then there aren't plenty of jobs to go around? I am still wondering if they Use American Workers in Chinese factories to build those GM cars. IS GM's greatest growth in China?
Good question. I didn't find anything direct, but I found a few bits of information that gives us a good idea(unfortunately some via
WIki, I'm a little busy today lol):
GM increased its sales in China by 68 percent to 230,048 vehicles in March 2010, outsold its U.S. sales of 188,546 by 22 percent.
So if Chinese sales are increasing at 68%, 22% faster than American sales growth - how fast is the American market growing? A little napkin math says that 78% of 68 is nearly 52... So U.S. sales grew by 52% in 2010 and Chinese sales by 68%.
Consider population differences, etc. and that doesn't look like a huge difference broken down into a "per capita" sort of analysis. Although, GM China is growing at a faster pace than GM America - so you've got me there.
However, as of 2008 (most recent data available I guess?) GM's American sales totaled at ~2,981,000 compared with China's ~1,095,000 total. Futhermore, GM holds a strong 22.1% (also as of 2008, most recent data found) of the American market and only 12% in China's total car market - which could mean that GM is simply not as popular in China and/or it could mean that the Chinese car market is simply more competitive than the American market... Either way, it seems to me like America is the better market for GM overall ATM but there is a possibility that may change in the future (the growth rate disparity shows it's possible after all).
But it seems the story isn't over!
I think it's fair to post this little bit too... This graph shows a decline in American
production, which is where all of the jobs come from.
From an article from 2005 on why GM was downsizing (they had just closed down 3 plants, and showed a loss for the quarter):
The company’s market share doesn’t support its size. They have too many plants, too many workers, too many models, too many dealers and their employee benefits are too high.
So this decline in U.S. production was a needed decline, as they were previously overproducing/overpaying. They're profitable now, so that problem seems to be fixed. The important thing to notice is that GM wasn't slashing American jobs and shipping them overseas as the long term trend on global production is fairly neutral, I mean, it's ticking upwards a little - but those increases in global production are likely just as easily explained by increasing global demand than a shift in the labor force. So it's not really fair to say GM is taking American money and moving overseas either.
My conclusion is still in favor of the bailouts.
