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This week we heard of more Job losses in the car trade. The sad news this time is almost 400 technicians are set to lose their jobs at Autoglass. While the company has to scale back in general, I don’t think anyone in the P.R department will be losing their jobs. An outstanding bit of work managed to divert attention from the company and any possible problems it may be facing, by selling us the far more interesting story that redundancies were being forced because people have responded to recession by slowing down and driving more carefully. Just about every media outlet in the country was delighted to run with this story uncontested. While there may be some truth that certain groups are using their cars less, if this story were empirically true then surely petrol stations would be closing the length of the country, All the tyre and exhaust centres, car servicing centres etc ?
The truth of course is that every inch of the industry is being affected by cut backs. In the case of Autoglass people are living with stone chips they would have previously attended to or they are buying their own repair kits off ebay. Autoglasses’ main source of revenue is its partnerships with Insurance companies and it is Insurance company cut backs that have had the main affect on Autoglass. Insurers are squeezing their premiums down as much as they can and insurance companies are shaving off any extras they can. This in turn means they are not encouraging customers to get their chips fixed and not allowing windscreen companies to seek out the business on their behalf. Of course it would be a bad move by Autoglass to shift any blame onto the Industry that keeps it afloat, so they had to take the bullet on this one. With people scratching their heads trying to work out what the real problem could be, inexplicably a leaked memo surfaced which explained it all for us. Good Luck to all the poor souls affected by this and let’s hope none of you are out of work too long. Although despite rival firms sticking their chests out to claim the industry is booming I suspect you may be looking at work in other sectors.
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