Regular readers will recall that we predicted this: With the “cash for clunkers” incentives now history, car sales are falling back to the abysmally low levels they reached early this year. The Associated Press reports that General Motors’ September sales were…

After reading STL JobWatch’s update on the unemployment situation in St. Louis, I headed for the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to refresh my knowledge on where the jobs are being lost. There are no surprises in the big industry categories, which I’ll…

Janet Reuther-Schopp was angry last May when she found out that her family’s business, Reuther Chrysler Jeep Dodge, was on the list of dealerships rejected by bankrupt Chrysler Corp. She’s still angry, and she has…

Missouri will open a career transition center in Fenton next week to help the thousands of workers laid off by Chrysler, state official Julie Gibson said this morning. Workers will get job-search assistance and job training, and the office will…

Stephen Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer raises a very interesting question about the day Chrysler filed for bankruptcy: Why did high-ranking government officials say in the morning that no plants would close, only to be contradicted that evening by documents…

St. Louis will be one of the starting points next Monday for a 34-city “Keep it Made in America” bus tour that’s meant to drum up support for the U.S. auto industry. The organizers, led by the United Steelworkers and the…

After we discussed the sad state of the St. Louis job market yesterday, a reader posed a good question: How much of the job loss here is due to cutbacks in auto production?

Answer: a lot.

Auto assembly plants employed just 2,000…

Count Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize-winning economist, among the commentators who think troubled U.S. carmakers need to go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Stiglitz wrote in the Financial Times recently:

The US car industry will not be shut down, but it does need to…

A lively debate has erupted over labor costs at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Figures of $70, $72 or even $75 an hour are often cited as evidence that the companies and the United Auto Workers have not made the sacrifices necessary to compete with…

In a case of life imitating Saturday Night Live, at least two of the three Detroit auto CEOs intend to drive to Washington for their return engagement. The SNL jokesters aren’t the only folks having fun at Detroit’s expense, either. Antony…