Just in case you were getting too carried away with a European recovery

;-)

Car bigwigs are warning that factories may have to close and jobs cut in the industry, as Europe continues to struggle with high unemployment leading to weak consumer and business spending.

Speaking at the Frankfurt car show bosses of Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford and BMW all warned of problems ahead. Volkswagen head said that Europe’s car industry could do with closing 10 factories although none were needed by VW themselves.

Europe still has to be viewed with scepticism,” he said, adding sales across the region were down about 3-3.5 million since 2007. “Basically, it’s 10 factories that could be closed … Thank God there are other areas we have growth,” he added.

Despite BMW posting decent global figures for August boss Norbert Reithofer still remained sour over Europe saying;

At the moment, the problem child is Europe. We do not yet see a light at the end of the tunnel this year,”

While Europe has started to post moderately good figures there is still a long long way to go and unemployment is still a massive problem. Consumers are still struggling with their household budgets and so extravagances like new cars are well down the shopping list. I get the feeling that good European data isn’t really indicative of the real world, but I suppose you could level that argument at most countries.