UK and The European Union: Exports of Car Components From 1994 to 2016

The UK has become increasingly reliant on international trade, especially with other European Union countries. This paper investigates UK exports, focusing on components for making cars. Large (often multinational) corporations are central to the process of car manufacture; such firms often operate across national boundaries. The European Union appears to have helped the UK economy to develop, by providing access to large consumer markets for UK-based firms: many UK jobs rely (at least partly) on exports. This paper reports evidence on links between UK factories making car components, and factories in other EU countries which use such components to make cars – in particular, focusing on German, French, and Italian car manufacturers. Insights are provided into the ‘Just-in-time’ approach to production, which is popular in many industries. Employment data from UK government surveys shed light on some characteristics of employees in UK factories making car components