PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — When Igor Semenov found a car he wanted at the right price, he grabbed it.
“I decided not to wait for Christmas deals or Black Friday and buy the car immediately,” said Semenov.
Semenov says he did a lot of research, even comparing car prices in different states.
He settled on an Outback from Subaru of Wesley Chapel.
“I asked about the price from multiple dealerships in South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia,” he said.
Those car shopping now, especially from one of the big three American automotive companies, will want to watch how the autoworkers' strike affects prices.
The United Auto Workers union is on strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.
For the first time in its history, it simultaneously had a work stoppage at all three of America’s unionized manufacturers.
Fink Auto Group CEO Scott Fink has been in the car business since 1989.
His current dealerships represent Subaru and Volkswagen.
Both car brands have non-union plants.
“During COVID, the demand for vehicles was still pretty high, and demand was low, so pricing went through the roof. Addendum pricing, raising prices from the manufacturer. What’s happened now, things have kind of normalized, so this strike is going to cause a disruption in the supply. If demand stays pretty solid like we expect, there’s going to be a limited amount of product, and that’s going to drive prices up,” said Fink.
Michael Aller is a director of Supplier Development with Florida Makes and an expert on supply chain issues.
“The longer that this goes on and more disruptive it becomes, the more of an impact there will be,” said Aller.
He says we are in a better situation than the last couple of years during the pandemic.
However, the auto industry is still recovering from shortages of semiconductors and chips that delayed the production of new vehicles.
Aller says since this labor dispute involves the big three, that’s where consumers may first start noticing issues.
“It will respectively have an impact on those manufacturers before it has an impact on others. That said, there will still be an aggregate impact on the market overall.”
Rob Hooker is a professor at USF College of Business.
He says the economy is already stretched, and this auto workers strike will add to that, especially regarding car shopping.
“Certainly, given the interest rates and things like that, we know that the deals are hard to come by for our wallets. But just be prepared. Fewer incentives. Probably for those highly sought-after vehicles, the most popular vehicles. Certainly, few of those are available. In particular, the colors and options people want and things like that.,” said Hooker.
All three automakers reported record or near-record profits, and the union is asking for higher wages, better benefits, and job projections.
“At least what we are hearing is the delta between what the union wants and what the automakers are willing to give them is pretty wide. Now we hope they can bridge that gap pretty quickly because a work stoppage like this is not good for the US economy,” said Fink.
The union has threatened to grow the strike if demands aren’t met.
