Auto Industry Structure and Resources

In today’s society, a college degree has become a requirement in order to obtain a well occupied profession. Prior to the recession, which the study defines as the period between December 2007 and June 2009, bachelor's graduates were already more likely to be employed than were associate degree holders, who were more likely to be employed than those without any postsecondary degree. After the recession, employment of college graduates dropped 7 percent, while associate degree holders experienced an 11 percent drop, and employment of high school graduates fell 16 percent. The percent of people excluded from the workforce, meaning they were seeking work but couldn’t find it, rose 31 percent for college graduates, 37 percent for high school graduates, and 50 percent for associate degree graduates, though associate degree holders were still excluded at a lower rate than high school graduates (Tilsley, 2013).

An oligopolistic market is one that has several dominant firms with the power to influence the market they are in; an example of this could be the supermarket industry which is dominated by several firms such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose etc... Furthermore an oligopolistic market can be defined in terms of its structure and its conduct, which involve various different aspects of economics.

Supporters of getting a college degree often point to the statistics that college graduates earn more than their high school educated peers over a lifetime. Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau reports that since 1977, “Adults with bachelor's degrees in the late 1970s earned 55 percent more than adults who had not advanced beyond high school. That gap grew to 75 percent by 1990 -- and is now at 85 percent.” A gap of an 85% pay difference is a huge figure and a clear reason why college is a great option for some people. But there are problems with that figure because when the number of college graduates who are either unemployed or underemployed is taken into account it changes the value of the statistic. In an article by Businessweek’s Richard Vedder we get statistics to counter that argument. He tells of how the number of new college graduates far exceeds job growth in technical, managerial, and professional jobs where graduates traditionally have searched for employment. As a consequence, we have underemployed college graduates doing jobs historically performed by those with just a highschool education. He says we have “more than 100,000 janitors with

A college degree is a valuable asset that could ultimately lead to a productive life in society due to the received education, but people without a college degree do turn out more than adequate in regards to societal success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the forecasted 30 fastest growing jobs between 2010 and 2020, five do not require a high school diploma, nine require a high school diploma, four require an associate 's degree, six require a bachelor 's degree, and six require graduate degrees to get the jobs (College). In an article called “College Education” by ProCon.org,

Even with the fact stated earlier that about how many college graduates work in fields that don’t require a degree, more and more jobs are requiring a college degree even to the associates degree level. Though they can argue how the number of jobs requiring a college degree fell by 1.75 million, the number of jobs that require a high school diploma fell 5.56 million. Thus proving that having a college degree could provide more job security compared to their counterparts who don’t. Along with that is how many

Oligopolies are a type of market structure evident in Australia, which is comprised of 2 or more firms having a significant share of the market. In an oligopoly the few firms sell similar but differentiated or homogenous products and is characterised by a large number of buyers making it a form of imperfect competition. This market structure is evident through the Big Four Banks, Phone Industry - Vodafone, Optus and Telstra.

Each side of the debate proposes great arguments. Supporters say, college graduates make more money. Although, in 2011 50% of United States Graduates under 25 had a part time job or no job at all. In today's day and age, it is highly unlikely for a part time job to make more than minimum wage. Also, many college graduates are employed in jobs that do not require college degrees. In 2012, one in three college graduates had a job that only required a high school diploma or less. With more job openings that do not require college degrees there is no point in attending college. Some say, more jobs require a college degree. Although in 2012, there were 16,000 parking lot attendants, 83,000 bartenders, and 115,000 janitors who all obtained a bachelor's degree. Furthermore, with 214,000 employed people, with bachelor's degrees, in only three job areas in 2012 it shows that many jobs do not require college

Given the current economic climate, I think the automotive industry is going to be faced with a multitude of economic challenges in the next five years. As an oligopoly market, the auto industry is highly dependent on strategic decision-making, and the demand for dynamic innovation and supply at decreased-cost levels. Competition, possibilities of turning substitutes into compliments, and shifts toward higher demand in services are seemingly leading factors that face the current automotive industry in the immediate future. But first, we should not ignore the political forces at play within the market.

The job market is evolving, causing college to be essential to anyone that wants to pursue a job. In a 2012 speech, President Barack Obama said that “right now, the unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average” (Lemann). This shows that even with a college degree, the job market is changing, causing many students to be unemployed.Yet at the same time, people that have a college education are better off than those without one. Moreover, the current job market is becoming more information based, which requires more literacy, math skills and critical thinking. Since the United States is not fully prepared with an education system that only requires kindergarten through 12th grade, the United States must outsource jobs overseas to have necessary tasks be completed. This not only takes

Competitive Rivalry. Highly competitive industries generally earn low returns because the cost of competition is high. The auto industry is considered to be an oligopoly, which helps to minimize the effects of price-based competition. The automakers understand that price-based competition does not necessarily lead to increases in the size of the marketplace; historically they have tried to avoid price-based competition, but more recently the competition has

Over the years, the U. S. auto industry's market has been experiencing fluctuations due to many reasons including: price, quality and foreign competition. General Motors Corporation (GM) which had been the leading car and truck manufacturer had been experiencing declining market share and facing stiff competition from both U.S manufacturers and foreign imports such as the Asian auto producers that included Toyota, Honda and Nissan. The main reason for increased foreign competition was that foreign cars were more fuel efficient, smaller, less expensive, and often more reliable than their American counterparts.

The United States Automotive industry has been dominated by five major auto manufacturers: GM, Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, and Honda. As globalization increases the domestic automotive market (GM, Ford, Chrysler) suffers from foreign competitors. Although with high entrance barriers the market suffers little to none from new entries. There are several reasons for this the largest being capital. It takes a lot of capital to obtain manufacturing plants, raw materials, as well as to hire and train employees. PASTEL Analysis

A second point of consideration relating to the intensity of rivalry within the industry was the level of industry demand. “Demand declines when customers are leaving the marketplace or each customer is buying less” (Hill &Jones, 2012, p. 62). This was the case in 2009 in many developed nations due to the recession, which was marked by job loss, credit problems, and high gas prices that increased the demand for fuel-efficient vehicles or left consumers unable to purchase vehicles altogether. At the same time, growth was expanding in China and some other developing nations, which opened the doors for automobile companies in these countries to expand at home and

These members are large sized public limited companies. This led by president, Carlos Ghosn. The automotive sector works with various institutional partners and non-governmental partners with related interests. The ACEA has an enduring cooperation with the European Council for Automotive R&D (EUCAR) which is responsible for research and development of automobiles in the industry. The automotive industry has close relations with 29 national automobile manufacturers on an international scale. The members of the automotive industry are: BMW Group, Toyota, DAF, Daimler, FCA, Ford, Hyundai, Iveco, Jaguar, OPEL, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Renault, Volkswagen and Volvo Group and Volvo Corporation. The members mainly sell cars, van and buses and offer services such as car sharing (Car 2 Go and Quicar) and using telecommunication networks in the vehicles.

The characteristics of the global motor vehicle industry are a boom in certain places and a bust in others all due to economic conditions in different nations. Four years after tow of Detroit Michigan’s big three went into bankruptcy American car makers are going “full throttle” with sales in August hitting an annual rate that if substantiated can take them back over 16 million and that is a rate that was last hit before the economic crisis and 80% higher than 2009 when GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy. The opposite is happening in Europe being in its sixth year slump now and with a weak economy, high petroleum prices and an aging