A major wage conflict is looming at VW. The restructuring ofthe company – which is not only necessary but also inevitable, regardless ofhow it is implemented – is coming up against a wide range of interests andinterest groups, none of which are honest and all of which only have their ownshort-term success and advantage in mind.
I think it's an increasingly widespread bad habit.
But I also think, can the average citizen can be expected tounderstand the truth, and does he even understand it?
I am always surprised when, for example, I explain that theeffective usage time of a private car is 5% or less and, after initialastonishment or disagreement, it is recognised that it is actually the casethat even well-educated or highly educated people do not understand theinterrelationships between systems and the sometimes simple mathematics ofvarious .
To return to the original topic, I would hope for:
- honest communication that the ONLY 800,000people employed in the automotive industry will be greatly reduced to around20-30%; no, not by 20-30%, but to 20-30%; soon there will only be 160,000 -200,000 employees.
- that it is honestly communicated that anintensive restructuring of the infrastructure is therefore pending; here, too,it is not a question of whether, but of howthat it is honestly communicatedthat the social security funds will face a problem if we do not make thenecessary changes, adjustments and investments
- that the investment backlog (‘Fairytale of thedebt brake’) is finally resolved,
- that conservatism, traditionalism and culturalpessimism expose themselves and reduce themselves to absurdity.
Let's take the first statementand see where the prediction comes from: It is undisputed that electricvehicles will make up the vast majority in the future; the efficiency of thedrive alone justifies this. A normally thinking person will not pay double theprice to get from A to B when they can do it for the single price.
Autonomous vehicles will be thenorm and the majority on the road.
The annual mileage will be atleast five to six times the current average annual mileage per vehicle.
Therefore, only about 20% ofvehicles will be needed.
This means that many fewerworkers will be needed for vehicle construction (but only for these specificactivities).
This also means that less than20% of the space will be needed for these vehicles (because a vehicle is eitherstationary or driving; the stillstand space äähh, sorry the parking space infront of the company will no longer be needed, the garage entrance and thegarage will no longer needed, the parking spaces in the shopping centres and infront of the shops, fitness centres, hairdressers, etc. are no longer needed;just think it through).
Oh god, oh god, the manyunemployed, who will pay for all this?
Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god;er, but don't we have a shortage of skilled workers right now? That's aplatitude, isn't it?
If I have well-trainedspecialists in the automotive industry, can they never learn or work inanything else? I don't think so. I estimate that 50 per cent will find a newjob immediately. Almost 30 per cent of German employees in the automotiveindustry work in research and development.
And here we will benefit fromanother future problem: demographics, which of course remains a huge challengeoverall and which also needs to be communicated more clearly at some point.
By 2030, around 4 million babyboomers will retire, and by 2035 as many as 20 million employees; as wecurrently have 46 million employees, i.e. ~40%; o.B.d.A., we can probablyassume that this ratio also applies to the automotive industry.
40% are retiring, leaving 10%(i.e. 64,000, doesn't sound so dramatic any more, does it?) who need to betrained or will simply remain unemployed. Why not?
In 2005, Germany had around 5million unemployed (11-12%); today it is 5-6%, or around 2.5 million: were webroke in 2005, did the country go under, did everyone have to sleep under abridge? Well, if Döpfner and his BILD empire have their way, it's dystopia, butwho takes these gentlemen seriously?
As you can see, people are beingunsettled again with horror scenarios and fear-mongering, and their own agendais being pursued.
For this future of mobility - andwhat has been described is only a small part of it - we have to rebuild theinfrastructure.
Parking spaces are becoming greenspaces, so we need civil engineers and gardeners.
Multi-storey car parks arebecoming apartments, so we need tradespeople.
Garages are becoming hobbycellars, so you need materials and maybe tradespeople, if not DIY.
Driveways are becoming greenspaces and a beautiful front garden.
On-street parking spaces in acity/suburb are being turned into green spaces with room for tables and chairsfor the newly established café.
Companies can expand on the site;on the former employee car park parking lot.
And so on and so forth.
And that's how the future comesabout, that's how thinking ahead and keeping up with the times, that's howinnovation happens.
And not marching in lockstep, assome CxU politicians like Spahn and his ilk would like.
But whether this can becommunicated to the average German citizen, who can take it in and process itmentally, is the exciting question, to which I have always answered: Yes, ofcourse, he's not stupid.
But with certain developments,I'm no longer sure.
In any case, it is reasonable andit must happen.
