This chart uses preliminary data from Automotive News (HT: reader Unknown) for February auto sales, which have posted a very impressive 13% increase year over year. From the depths of the recession in 2009, sales have surged by over 60%. That is a very impressive recovery, and augurs well for continued signs of recovery—however modest—in the months ahead.
UPDATE: The official figures from Commerce put February auto sales at 15.03 million. That represents a 12.3 year over year increase. Domestic vehicle sales rose 14.5% year over year. I've corrected the chart from the original post. The recovery is still very impressive; gains like this are almost certain to "trickle down" into a variety of different industries in the months to come as production schedules are ramped up.
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6 comments:
hooray!
I find it difficult to see how purchasing depreciating assets via debt (from some companies backed by taxpayers), improves the real economic future of this country.
We are sacrificing the jobs of tomorrow for the cars of today...
Well, sales are increasing except for the Volt, made by Government Motors. Apparently, very few people want them.
Check out this screenshot of a spreadsheet I made comparing auto sales (Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate) to the BLS's monthly job creation figures going back to the beginning of last year.
My Excel skills are mediocre, so I had to devise an alternate way of showing the auto sales by deleting the "1" preceding the number, and eliminating the decimal point. That way the 2 sets of numbers are roughly in the same range. Otherwise the BLS numbers mostly in the hundreds were way above the auto sales in the teens and you couldn't discern the relationship.
--- Screen shot ---
If the pattern continues, February's jobs numbers out Friday would be somewhere around 300K, as I showed on the graph.
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