Employment
Automobile dealers provided about 1.3 million wage and salary jobs in 2004. An additional 55,000 self-employed and unpaid family workers were employed in this industry. Sales, installation, maintenance, and repair workers accounted for 63 percent of wage and salary employment. Management, office and administrative support, and transportation and material moving occupations made up another 35 percent.
Since 1950, the trend in this industry has been toward consolidation. Franchised dealers have decreased in number, while their sales volume has increased. Larger dealers can offer more services, typically at lower costs to both dealer and customer. About 55 percent of jobs in automobile dealers were in establishments employing between 20 and 99 workers (chart 1). On average, automobile dealers had 25 employees per establishment, compared with an average of 14 employees per establishment among all retail businesses.
